Resurgence
by Twilight L Xari
Summary: After being burned in his explosion, Mello is found by Matt, who had been looking for him ever since he left the Wammy House. It's always nice to have an old friend on your side, but after almost 5 years, it's bound to be an odd reunion. Matt/Mello
1. Victory and Disaster

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or anything else in this story that clearly isn't mine.

A/N: Alright, this is my first-ish foray into the lovely world of Death Note. I'm probably the fifty thousandth person to write the Matt/Mello reunion, but oh well. I'm going to have the next chapter up within a day, since it's already written. Hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 1: Victory and Disaster**

The SPK was not hackable. This was one of the indisputable facts of life, and ranked right up there with the fact that fire will burn you and the fact that water is clear.

Well, no, those are terrible comparisons, since fire doesn't burn you if you have rubbing alcohol on your hands, and water takes on a blue tint in large quantities, but the point still stands: the SPK is unhackable. Even people on the FBI's hacking watch list couldn't hack the SPK. It was impossible.

That was why I jumped off the couch and did a victory dance that resembled a cross between Link's item-finding dance and Sudowoodo from Pokemon Colosseum when I finally managed to hack the SPK.

Then I had to sit back down and type like my fingers were on fire to make sure that they didn't know I was in their system. I didn't want to go from being The First Person to Successfully Hack the SPK to being The First Person to be Arrested for Successfully Hacking the SPK.

Once I'd covered my tracks and made my link to their system as secure as it could get, I set the laptop on the other end of the couch and stretched. If I ever met the people who had designed Near's computer system I would give them my utmost congratulations. That system had taken me two months to crack. The old record for uncrackable was a week and a half. Kudos to them, whoever they were.

I picked the laptop back up and looked through Near's files. They were clearly meant to foil anyone who might hack the system – somebody like me, in other words. That was alright, though. I was a genius, and I'd lived with the fluffball for a fair bit of my childhood, so I knew how he thought. In no time flat I was sifting through the files that were actually important. Some of them were records of conversations with the second L, which I ignored for the time being. I'd get to them later. Right now I was looking for something different.

"Come on, Near," I muttered to the computer screen. "You've gotta have something on him, you _know_ he's out there, you wouldn't ignore him…"

It was six thirty in the evening before I was finally forced to give up and admit at least temporary defeat. "I'll get you yet," I told the computer screen as I set the laptop on the floor. Then I sprawled on the couch, made sure my goggles were on securely, threw one arm over my eyes, and fell asleep.

I woke up later to my computer talking. I mumbled at it to quiet down, then sat up and adjusted my goggles. The computer was still talking. Still sleepy, I looked down at my poor computer, which had probably been traced and ki –

Oh, hello. That wasn't on my computer when I went to sleep. It looked like…satellite feed? And radio chatter, by the sound of it. Well, that certainly hadn't been there when I went to sleep.

I yawned again, then grabbed the computer and started tracing the satellite feed to find the coordinates. The radio chatter was still going on in the background, but I only half understood it – Japanese was my fourth or fifth language, so I couldn't really understand it while I was typing.

A minute and a Google map later, I had the location narrowed down to an ld warehouse about twenty miles outside of LA. I adjusted my goggles and set the laptop on the couch next to me, focusing on listening to the radio chatter. I got the distinct impression that I had missed a crucial part of the conversation, because they were talking about eyes and names and deals and I had absolutely no clue what was going on. I knew I should've gone through more of Near's files before I went to sleep, but it was a little late to do that now.

I had just lulled myself into listening to the quiet mutters and occasional silences when things started exploding and people started yelling. I grabbed the laptop to check the satellite feed again, but by the time I had the image up, all the action outside the building was over, and all I had was shouting and banging and the occasional Japanese swearword.

After a few minutes, I was getting very bored of listening to halfway unintelligible radio chatter, but the good news was, they seemed to have gotten their all-important Note – I still didn't know what that was, I really needed to look that up – and were almost done what they were doing.

"L, we've captured two of them and the notebook is secure!"

"We're returning now."

"No. Not yet. We haven't found Mello, but he's definitely still lurking in the building. We've come this far – let's find him."

I froze. _Mello_.

I needed more time to put this situation together, to find out what was happening, to see what I needed to do. Unfortunately, life's not like Nintendo – there's no pause button.

I was thinking about what I had to work with so far when I heard him.

"Don't move! I've already destroyed both entrances. This is your only warning. The next bomb will destroy the entire building. Do as I say."

_Mello_. It had been a long time since I'd heard him.

"Ah, Yagami again. I should have killed you when I had the chance." Instinctively, I made a note of the name – one more piece of a puzzle that I knew nothing about. "I never would have thought you'd show up again looking for the notebook."

For a moment I lost track of what was being said, since it didn't sound like any Japanese I'd learned. But I understood what was said next.

"Your real name is Mihael Keehl."

There was silence. Something had happened, something important, and I had no clue what. Cursing, I picked up the laptop and pulled up Near's files. I had to find out what this damn Note was, because it seemed pretty damn important to understanding this whole deal. I didn't want to lose track of the conversation on the radio, but I decided that if anything important happened I'd know – Mello would never go quietly.

I was still trying to break Near's note-taking code when I heard gunfire and yelling. I opened the satellite feed again, but whatever was going on was happening inside the building, where I couldn't see.

A few seconds later all my concerns about not being able to see the action were rendered moot as the building shook under a massive explosion.

It took me a moment to react. Then I was out of my seat, grabbing my vest and my car keys. Mello was in there. Hell, he must've been the one who blew the place up. For somebody so intelligent he was a stupid bastard sometimes.

If he was dead I'd kill him myself. I'd been searching for him for almost five years; if he'd killed himself five minutes after I'd tracked him down, I'd be pissed.

_Please be alive._


	2. Dead or Alive

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, if that wasn't already glaringly obvious.

A/N: This chapter reveals my ineptitude at first aid. I can give CPR if I have to, but just injuries? I don't know anything about them. Dess Artem was awesome about correcting me, though. I guess she can be called my beta on the basis that this is based on an RP we did about the same topic, so big thank-you to her. I'll put the next chapter up after a bit, but it may be a while, since I'm hoping to keep a chapter ahead in my actual writing of this and I'm rather spastic about writing and tend to go off on tangents.

**Chapter 2: Dead or Alive**

The explosion site was a wreck – what else would it be? – but the dust was settled by the time I got there. The police were long gone – there was nothing here for them. At least, nothing they couldn't come back for later with a body bag.

But Mello was here. He had to be. I'd been listening to the Japanese radio chatter the whole way here, and they hadn't found him. They'd assumed he was dead.

Admittedly, the chances of anyone surviving this disaster was slim, but clearly the police had managed, so I was certain Mello had too.

"Mello?" I called, swinging the beam of my flashlight in a large arc. Not surprisingly, there was no answer.

From what I'd gathered, Mello had been on the second floor when he'd blown the place. The bare skeleton of the building had held, and I picked my way through the wreckage towards a shape that looked like a staircase.

Then I heard the scream. It was coming from the other side of the wreckage, beyond the staircase, and it had an agonizing, almost inhuman quality to it, pain and rage and despair all rolled up into one. I stopped dead for a moment, then sprinted towards the noise, barely managing not to trip. "Mello!" It couldn't be anyone else.

I found him by nearly tripping over him. I saw his hair in my flashlight beam just in time to stop. Then I saw the rest of him. "Oh, _fuck_," I breathed. He was unconscious; from what I could see under the dust and plaster, he was out for good reason. There was a huge burn from his left shoulder up to his hairline. It looked nasty. Other than that he didn't look too awful, just a few cuts and a shitload of bruises.

After taking a few seconds to assess how badly hurt he was, I worked on getting the rubble off of him. Thankfully it was mostly little chunks of ceiling with no beams or anything. Mello was motionless the whole time, which made me a little worried. I would've expected him to be fighting his way free by now, but he was just lying there. It scared me a bit.

I crouched down next to him. "Mello? I'm gonna pick you up," I told him, even though he probably couldn't hear me. Then I worked my arms under him and lifted him, a bit surprised by how light he was. Well, it made it easier to carry him, anyway.

We'd gotten about halfway back to the car when he finally started struggling. While I figured it was a good sign, it was also a bit dangerous. I readjusted so I was holding him tighter – I didn't want to hurt him, but there wasn't much choice. It was that or drop him. Or trip, that was a danger too. "Would you please stop squirming?" I asked him. Not that he heard me or did what I asked, of course.

Somehow I managed to get to the car without getting us killed. Then I had to crouch down to open the door without dropping Mello, which was a feat in and of itself, especially since he was now squirming like a fish that was trying to get back to water. Once I had him laid down across the backseat he calmed down a little bit, though he still looked pained. I couldn't really blame him.

The drive back to my apartment was a little less frantic than my race to the explosion site. These roads had their shares of potholes, and I didn't want to go over bumps with Mello in the back. I also didn't want to speed on the off chance that I was pulled over. That would be an interesting explanation. "Well, officer, my friend here's in the Mafia, and I'm just picking him up from the explosion site over there." Yeah…that wouldn't go over too well.

After an hour of anxious driving, I pulled to a stop outside of my apartment. For a moment I was worried that somebody might see me bringing Mello inside, but then I realized something – it was two thirty in the fucking morning! Who the hell would be looking out their window?

Getting Mello out of the car was just as much a challenge as getting him in had been. At least his reflexes were intact. The second I touched him he reacted, and he continued trying to beat me, albeit weakly, all the way to the door. Thankfully, by the time I had to adjust my hold on him to open the door, he'd passed out fully again. I wasn't sure if that was a bad sign or not, but whatever sort of sign it was, it made my job a lot easier.

Once we were in the apartment, I set him down on my bed and dashed into the bathroom to find the first aid supplies. I knew I had some. Somewhere. I found them at the top of the medicine cabinet and snatched them. I hoped there would be enough gauze to cover that burn.

Burn. I had no idea how to treat a burn, beyond the basic 'if it hurts run it under some cold water'. Well, the same rule probably applied – cold water couldn't do any harm. I grabbed some washcloths and dunked them under cold water until they were soaked through, then headed back out of the bathroom to try to apply this sorry excuse for first aid. Then I had to run off again because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to get that leather vest off him without scissors, and I had no clue where the scissors had gotten to. I thought they were on the kitchen counter, but they'd somehow migrated to the table. I grabbed them and went back to the bedroom to finally start accomplishing something.

Mello didn't react at all to the vest being cut off, even when I peeled it off the burn. I would've thought he was dead if it weren't for the fact that I could hear him breathing. Him not moving made my job easier, but I would've felt a hundred times better if he'd been fighting me every step of the way. He didn't even protest when I used the cold washcloths to get the dirt and grit out of his burn, even though it must've been excruciatingly painful.

It was nearly four o'clock by the time I'd finished everything. I was completely out of bandages, partially because I was so inefficient at using them. The lumpy mess I'd made would probably make any competent medical professional want to smack me, but it was the best I could do. I would have lots more practice, I was sure.

Satisfied that Mello was as comfortable as I could make him, I grabbed my laptop and sat down at the computer chair that had somehow taken up residence against the bedroom wall a whole room away from its desk. I had a lot of catching up to do.


	3. Hell

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. It is far too awesome to be owned by me.

A/N: This idea belongs to my RP partner Dess Artem, who is awesomeness personified when it comes to thinking up good ideas. Kudos to her. There's artwork on DeviantArt that goes along with this. The link to my account's on my profile page, if anyone's interested. It's called "Forgive Me…"

**Chapter 3: Hell**

Three days later I woke with a start, nearly dropping my laptop. I blinked a few times, trying to remember when I had fallen asleep. I couldn't remember, but according to the computer I had opened my last file at 4:57 AM, which meant I'd been asleep for about six hours, give or take.

I set my laptop on the floor and stretched, listening to almost every bone in my spine pop loudly. Then I shuffled into the kitchen to make some coffee and find myself a cigarette, since God only knew I needed one.

I lit up while I waited for the coffee to brew. The nicotine perked me up enough that I didn't feel like I would fall asleep against the counter, which was good. I knew that eventually cigarettes and coffee would fail to keep me awake, but for now they did the job. I'd worry about later when it came.

After a few minutes the coffeepot rattled, which told me the coffee was ready. I poured myself a cup, snuffed the cigarette in the ashtray on the counter, and went back into the bedroom. I was fairly sure I was nearing the end of Near's endless files, which was good, because I was about ready to go insane from reading cold, emotionless notes – which, while they were unquestionably the most complete type of notes there were, were devoid of anything actually _interesting_.

I'd only been sitting down for a few minutes when I heard Mello's breathing change from a steady shallow rhythm to raspy gasping. I set the laptop down and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. "You awake?"

Mello didn't answer – he was too busy trying to fight his way into a sitting position. "Get the hell away from me!" he snarled. Well, tried to snarl – it came out as more of a grating rasp that sounded vaguely like words.

"Mello, calm down." I wasn't really worried that he'd hurt me, which it looked like he was trying to do – I was worried that he was going to hurt _himself_. "Mello, it's me. It's Matt. You're safe."

There was a moment of silence. Mello opened the eye that wasn't covered in a bandage and blinked furiously. His vision must've been fuzzy. "…Matt?" he said, his voice cracking a bit. "What are you doing here? You don't belong here…"

"What are you talking about? Of course I belong here, I live here!" I guessed that he couldn't see that he was in an apartment rather than an explosion site, in which case his comments made almost perfect sense.

However, he didn't seem to like the answer I'd given him. In fact, it made him more upset. "Oh, God, no…" He grabbed his rosary and held it tight enough that his knuckles were white. "Please, God, he doesn't belong here, take him back, he doesn't deserve this!" His eyes were fixed on something far away, and blood dripped through his fingers. "Please, God… I was trying to do the right thing…"

"Mello, stop, it's alright." I grabbed his hand, trying to stop him from hurting himself any more than he already had, but it had no effect on him. He was still panicking. I put one hand on the unburned side of his face and locked eyes with him. "Mello, look at me. You're not dead. You're alright. We both are. Everything's alright."

He stared at me, wide-eyed. "But this… It's Hell, we're in Hell…"

The blood from his hand was dripping through my fingers as well as his. "Mello, listen to me! We're not in Hell! You're in my apartment, it's not Hell!" Well, when he came to his senses he'd probably debate _that_ one with me – my place was a wreck, even by my standards. "You're okay, Mello, I swear."

The look on his face had shifted from pure fear to pain. "But it's burning…"

"You blew up a building and got burned, I know it hurts, but you're alright. You're alive, you're going to be just fine."

Slowly, the panic started to fade from his eyes. "It's not…?" Slowly, he released his rosary and reached up to touch my face, like he was seeing if I was really there. "We're alive…"

I nodded. "We're both alive," I assured him. "I know it hurts, but you're still alive."

Mello took a rasping breath, then lowered his hand back to his rosary, though now he just touched it rather than crushing it. "…Thank you…" he said, closing his eye and relaxing again. Whether he was thanking me or God I wasn't sure – God seemed more likely.

Once I was sure he was back to sleep I grabbed some gauze from the nightstand and wrapped his hand up with it, since there was still blood oozing from his palm. Then I got up and went into the bathroom to wash the blood off my own hands.

What had he done that made him that afraid of dying? Five years ago if I'd asked him where he'd end up he probably would've made some smartass remark about watching Near burn from Purgatory. Now he thought he'd done something so unforgivable that he'd burn for eternity. I would've loved to just pin everything on the pain screwing with his mine, but that didn't explain him begging for forgiveness.

When I went back into the bedroom, I saw that Mello's hand had found the rosary again. He looked almost like a little kid holding a stuffed animal, like it could fight off the monsters in the dark.


	4. Re Railed

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, nor do I own the Wizard of Oz. How that ended up mentioned in here I have no idea, but it happened…

A/N: This one came out shorter than I intended it to, but I like it. Don't know if I've said this yet here, but major thanks to DessArtem for being my RP partner. She's a good Mello. Even looks vaguely like him…

**Chapter 4: Re-Railed**

By the time I was done reading through everything I could find on Near's computer that had any value, the only thing I wanted was sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't have to do any math to know that the odds of Mello waking up again in the next few hours were pretty good, which sadly meant that I couldn't take a twenty-four-hour nap.

Time for more coffee. And another cigarette. Not that either of those things would be effective for much longer. They could only do much. Sleep was waiting to pounce on me the moment I closed my eyes for more than two seconds.

I'd just plugged the coffeepot in when I heard a small, raspy voice. "…Matt?"

Within seconds I'd yanked the plug back out of the wall – the coffeepot wasn't allowed to run without adult supervision – and dashed back into the bedroom, though I had to slow down before the doorway so I didn't trip on my laptop cord or the pile of papers I had next to the door. "Right here," I said, hopping over the minefield on the floor and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Mello blinked up at me with his good eye. After a minute, he seemed to relax. "…Where am I?"

I hoped that meant he'd gotten over the Hell thing. I didn't want to go through that again. "You're in my apartment, about thirty miles away from LA. You're safe – nobody knows you're here." Well, Near didn't know he was here, at any rate. Neither did the NPA. I highly doubted the mob was going to try to hunt him down – at this point, everyone assumed he was dead anyway, so why bother?

"…How'd you find me?" By the sound of it, somebody would peg him as the smoker rather than me. His voice was that raspy. Damn, he must've inhaled a lot of ash.

"I hacked multiple government agencies, police forces, and topped it all off with the SPK three days ago. I hacked them a few hours before you blew your hideout to high Heaven."

"…Should've left me there…"

I frowned. "The hell I should've. Did you want to die in that explosion?"

"No…" His hand drifted to the still-bloody rosary. "Might as well have, though…"

"Wasn't it you who told me that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?"

He was silent for a moment. He probably didn't appreciate me throwing some of his own advice at him. "…How long've I been out?"

I had to think about that for a minute. "About three days, give or take. I kinda started losing track after the first forty-something hours."

"…Three days. Damn."

"Why? Have a date you weren't supposed to miss? I usually clear my calendar before I blow stuff up."

He glared at me. Well, at least that was normal. "After three days," he growled, "it's no wonder I'm fucking thirsty."

"Just a sec." I hopped up off the bed and headed into the kitchen to get him some water. His sense of hostility was still there, that was obvious. In some ways he was more like a wounded animal than anything else. He was going to _hate_ not being able to get up. Three days of being unconscious had given him a jump-start on healing, but he still looked, well, like somebody'd dropped a building on him, like the Wicked Witch of the East, minus the flashy shoes.

The thought of Mello wearing ruby slippers and saying, "There's no place like home!" nearly made me burst out laughing. Fortunately, the glass overflowed just in time to keep me from completely losing it.

These were the places sleep-deprivation drove my mind.

After a few seconds I pulled myself together, grabbed the bottle of painkillers on the counter with my free hand, and went back into the bedroom. Mello was coughing and somehow managing to look exceptionally frustrated while doing so. I set the glass and the pill bottle on the nightstand. "You shouldn't've tried to sit up."

He shot me a venomous glare which clearly said, _fuck you_. I couldn't really blame him; in his place I'd probably feel the same way.

Now for the tricky part. "I'll help you get up."

Mello glared at the sheets as I put my arm around his shoulders to help him up. I guess he didn't want to glare at me because I was helping, but he wanted to glare at _something_ because he couldn't do it on his own. The glare stayed right as it was he downed the pill I handed to him and forced the water down after it. I had to hold the glass for him, which I could tell he hated, but he was already glaring too much for it to get any more extreme. "The painkillers should kick in before long," I told him as I helped him lay back down.

"Good." He sounded annoyed. No wonder. "…How bad is it?"

I didn't have to ask what he meant. I just didn't know how he'd take the burn. "It's mostly just cuts and bruises from stuff falling on you. Worst bit's the burn on your shoulder. Goes down your arm a few inches, and up the side of your face."

He didn't say anything. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I didn't think that was good, but I couldn't really do anything about it, especially not with him about to fall asleep from pain medication. I'd deal with that another time.

There was silence for a few minutes, since I had nothing else I could say and Mello wasn't talking. The next time I looked at him, he was asleep.


	5. Balance of Power

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Phantom of the Opera. …Dear God, what am I going to reference next? The Sound of Music?

A/N: I'm currently basking in the praise of reviewers. I'm glad I'm writing a good Matt. Despite my original misgivings about this chapter, I like the way it turned out. Just enough messed-up psychosis to be interesting, I think.

**Chapter 5: Balance of Power**

I had thought that dealing with Mello would be easier after I'd gotten some sleep.

Sometimes the things I thought revealed the true depths of my naïve stupidity.

"You want to _what_?"

"I need to give you a cold bath. Cold water's good for burns, and I need to change your bandages anyway, so it makes sense." Not that any amount of common sense would convince Mello to do something he'd decided he didn't want to do.

The glare I got in return for my explanation might've blinded me if not for my goggles. "Hell no."

I sighed. "Mello, I get that you hate this. I don't like it any more than you do. It'll be easier to just get it over with."

Mello, however, wasn't in the mood to listen to reason. "No. Fuck you."

Sleep wasn't a magical cure-all after all. Why did he have to make things so difficult? Probably a combination of pride and some weird sort of self-preservation instinct. However, that didn't change the fact that I still had to do it. "I'm sorry, Mello," I said, then just leaned down and picked him up before he could give me a yea-nay or maybe.

It took him all of two and a half seconds to register exactly what I was doing and start fighting me. Of course, all he could really do at his angle was dig his fingernails into my shoulder, which didn't hurt that much and certainly didn't keep me from carrying him into the bathroom.

Then he grabbed the strap of my goggles.

That was one step too far. He could claw me, beat me, bite me, whatever. I probably deserved it. But going for my eyes was low, and he knew that. "Mello."

"Put…me…down," he snarled, not letting go.

"If you do that, Mello, I _will_ drop you."

There was a tense moment when neither of us moved. I could practically hear him trying to decide if I would actually follow through on that threat. He apparently didn't call my bluff, because he let go, all the fight going out of him.

"Thank you." I sat him on the edge of the tub and turned the water on, then started unwrapping the bandages, doing my best to be careful. Mello seemed even more tense than he'd been to begin with, which bothered me. I didn't know if he was scared or embarrassed or just in pain – he wasn't giving me anything to work with.

"You've changed."

I paused and glanced up at him. "How so?"

He was watching me with a strange expression I couldn't quite place, especially since half his face wasn't working too well. "You just have. I'm not sure I like it."

I wasn't quite sure what I could say to that. "You've changed too." I didn't say that I didn't really like the changes any more than he liked mine.

"That's different." His tone of voice told me in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to talk about it.

I pulled the last of the bandages off. I'd have to deal with his psyche later – I didn't have the medical skills to deal with that and the burn at the same time, and if I didn't deal with the burn, it would more than likely kill him, while his psyche…well, that would probably kill him too, but it was the lesser of two evils at the moment.

Mello remained stoically silent as I helped him get undressed, but he finally reacted when I put him in the cold water. "Fuck, Matt, are you trying to freeze me to death?!" He tried to sit up, but failed. "Get me the fuck out of here!"

"Just stay still, it's not _that_ cold," I said, turning around to grab some washcloths from under the sink. "Is it helping with the burn at all?"

"…Yes," he admitted. "I don't feel like I'm on fire."

"That's good." I scooted back over to the side of the tub. "I, um, have to clean your burn. It might hurt a bit." I felt like a doctor telling somebody, "Now this won't hurt a bit."

Mello nodded and wrapped his fingers around the rim of the tub, his knuckles going white as I started cleaning the burns. I wasn't looking, but I was guessing that his teeth were clenched so tight his jaw hurt. How he could not start screaming, I didn't know, since it must've been excruciating, but he didn't make a sound. I couldn't decide whether I should admire that or think he was a complete and utter dumbass.

"Alright, it's done." The ill-concealed pain on his face made me feel terrible, but I'd done what I had to do to help him, even though it hurt. But I still felt like shit. It didn't help that he looked like he was swimming in blood, which made me feel vaguely sick as well as shitty. I pulled the plug on the tub and turned around to dump the bloodstained towels in the sink so I didn't have to look. When I turned back, the tub was almost empty and Mello was trying – and again failing – to get up.

"Hey, easy," I said, helping him sit up. "Don't hurt yourself."

He glared at me, but that didn't cover the look he had on his face. He looked upset, more so than he had before. This was a more sad upset than a frustrated one. "It's not like it matters, being a little more hurt won't change the fact that I'm fucking hideous."

I blinked. "What? Where did that come from?"

"Where the hell do you _think_ it came from? It's not bad enough that I can't even get up by myself, I have to look like the fucking Phantom of the Opera!" He seemed to be on the very edge of his control.

I grabbed the roll of bandages off the floor with my free hand. "You don't look like the Phantom of the Opera, Mello. You look good."

He stared at me. "Good? How can you ignore this fucking enormous bloody ugly _burn_ on my shoulder? How can you say that looks _good_?"

"Mello…" I hoped I wouldn't say anything I would regret later, when Mello was healthy enough to either shoot me or beat me to a pulp. "You're badass. Being burned doesn't do anything but increase your badass factor." I stopped myself before I said anything about him looking less girly – I definitely didn't need a bruise on my face. "Can you hold up your arm? I need to rebandage you."

He hesitated, then lifted his arm, wincing a bit. I started bandaging him, which was easier when he wasn't unconscious. He was, amazingly, quiet through the whole thing, not even moving as I wrapped bandages around his face. I didn't know whether that was a good sign or a bad one. It was nice that he was being cooperative, but Mello was never cooperative, at least, not that I could remember, and I couldn't imagine that changing in fifty years, much less five. I felt a little better, though, when he got out of the tub and dressed again at least partially under his own power.

"Fuck," he grumbled, leaning against me, since he'd used up most of his energy getting dressed. "I hate this…"

"You'll be better before you know it." He snorted, telling me in no uncertain terms that he thought that was a load of complete bullshit. "Seriously, you will be. You look a lot better than you did initially, you just have to get some more rest."

"I've gotten nothing _but_ rest for four fucking days, how much more do I _need_?" he asked, aggravated. "I should at least be able to _walk_ by now!"

"Mello, you got half crushed by a building, most people wouldn't have come out of that alive. Count your blessings."

He grumbled, but didn't really have anything to say to that. He did, however, protest when I picked him up. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm carrying you back to bed, what does it look like?" I didn't say that I wasn't about to have him fall over and kill himself trying to walk on his own, since I didn't think I needed to damage his already-fragile confidence.

For a moment I thought he was going to respond, but he didn't. He just held onto my shoulder as I carried him back into the bedroom. "Get some rest," I advised him, setting him on the bed and pulling the covers up over him. "You'll feel a bit better tomorrow."

He didn't comment on that. He just closed his eyes.

I didn't say that my words had only been a guess.

…Damn, and to think, I was only brushing the surface of things I wasn't saying.


	6. Confidence

Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine, and neither are Dess's wonderful ideas, which are all over this chapter.

A/N: This chapter was originally going somewhere, but instead of actually going somewhere, it decided to stop while it was about to go somewhere. So next chapter will be when things start happening more. I think. If all goes well. Also, next chapter will probably be the beginning of some awkwardness, which is always fun.

**Chapter 6: Confidence**

Some things in life had to be designed just to keep me on my toes. I had three glorious days with no chaos on the Mello front. I would've called him _cooperative_, but I didn't want to jinx myself. Then again, he didn't really have much of a choice in the matter; he'd been either asleep or drugged for pretty much seventy-two hours straight.

But alas – good things couldn't last. Hell, good things couldn't even get airtime when Mello was in the equation.

I didn't realize that anything was going on until I heard the mattress springs start squeaking like a whole tribe of mice, or whatever the word for a big group of mice is. I stood up and headed over to the open bedroom door to see what was going on. "…Mello, what the hell are you doing?"

Mello didn't appear to hear me. He was too focused on bracing himself on the headboard with both hands, looking unsteady, but not about to give up.

"Mello, what the hell are you thinking?" I crossed the room. "You're going to kill yourself." I tried to grab his arm to force him to lay back down, but he somehow twisted away.

"I'm fine," he snarled through clenched teeth. I wondered how much of his wobble was from unsteady legs and how much of it was from the pain everywhere else. Either way, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Mello, _please_ lay back down before you hurt yourself," I tried, giving politeness a shot since swearing at him hadn't worked.

My phrasing didn't change things, though. "No," he said, somehow managing to stand mostly upright, albeit shakily. "I am fucking sick of laying down."

I eyed him. "So you're going to stand up all day?"

Only after that was out of my mouth did I realize that I'd made a rather large miscalculation. I'd meant to make a point about how long he could stand up without actually coming out and saying he wasn't strong enough to stay standing. Unfortunately, I'd had the opposite effect.

"Just watch me," he snarled. Then he quite confidently took both hands off the headboard and took a step towards the door.

His confidence had fallen by the third step, and he followed it down on the fourth.

I thanked the gods of gaming for my good reflexes. I was sure Mello was at least marginally thankful to them as well, though at that moment he probably would've preferred falling to being caught.

"…Fuck…" he muttered after a minute. He didn't even attempt to stand back up under his own power, just letting me hold him up. "Can't even fucking move on my own…"

The logical side of me told me to use this golden opportunity to put him back to bed, but something told me not to. The fact that he'd failed again at something that seemed so simple was eating at his confidence, I could tell. He was ready to give up. As easy as that would make my job, Mello giving up would be…

Unthinkable.

I was about to say something about never giving up, or some such inspirational shit, but Mello appeared to have given himself that pep talk before I'd even opened my mouth, because Mello made another bid to stand on his own two feet, only this time he braced himself on me instead of the headboard. Once he was upright again he stopped, looking around. I wasn't entirely sure what he was doing until he almost launched off me to get to the dresser a yard and a half away.

Was he seriously going to try to leapfrog his way into the living room?

I decided he was definitely aiming to when he went from the dresser to the computer chair, which had a dangerous moment of movement before he got the wheels under control.

I drifted over towards the door and out into the living room a bit. There was a big stretch of space between the door and the couch, and I put myself almost right in the middle of it.

Mello looked around the doorframe he was holding onto, then crossed the space to use me as a support yet again. I could tell he was getting tired, but I figured he'd probably be able to make it to the couch if I didn't stop him.

Sure enough, with one more staggering hop, Mello had made it to the couch, looking exhausted but triumphant as he sat down. "…Told you."

"Yup." I sat down next to him. "And I'm sure it was well worth it."

He looked around, distaste showing on his face. "This place is a shithole," he commented.

I shrugged. "Yeah, I've been meaning to clean, I've just been busy."

"Busy playing videogames?" he suggested scornfully.

"Believe it or not, I _do_ have other things that I do," I informed him. "Gaming's not a good source of income."

Mello turned and looked around the rest of the living room. "So what have you been doing that's been keeping you so damn busy?"

I thought for a second. "Well, I spent three days reading through Near's entire mainframe. Then I was taking care of you, and I did some hacking jobs while you were asleep."

He stared at me. "Wait, you read all of Near's files?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I had no idea what was going on, and I needed to figure out what was happening."

"What else have you done on the case?"

"Nothing. I'm not exactly some sort of go-out-and-get-'em guy."

"Speaking of going out, I need you to go back to the explosion site and get a few things."

"Like what?"

"I need you to check if any of the computers are intact, and if they are, I need them back. There's two years of work on those that I don't want the police to have."

"It's been a week, I'm pretty sure the police have cleaned the place out pretty well."

Mello smirked. "Not if they didn't know what was in the explosives. They think there's something toxic there."

"But there's not, right?" If he was trying to send me into a radioactive explosion site – again! – then I had news for him. I would do just about anything for him, but going into some sort of explosion-induced Chernobyl was a little beyond my self-imposed job description.

"Of course there's nothing toxic. Well, nothing too toxic," he amended. "Just wear a facemask and gloves."

I sighed. "Alright. I'll go see what I can get." I stood up and gave him a look. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone," I said, vaguely threateningly. Then I pulled my boots on, grabbed my vest, and headed out the door before Mello could make any comments about how he would _never_ do something stupid.


	7. Borders

Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine, Matt and Mello aren't mine, and the idea for this chapter is _definitely_ not mine.

A/N: Okay, this chapter can be blamed entirely on DessArtem. She started it. She is the queen of awkwardness. So yeah, this chapter started out as her child – I just have custody of it for some odd reason.

**Chapter 7: Borders**

It took me about an hour to get to the explosion site. By the looks of it, the police still hadn't been there – why would they bother? The building was almost leveled, and anyone who'd been in there was undoubtedly dead by now.

What was left of the computers was fairly close to where I'd found Mello – it took me an age to dig through the wreckage to find anything that even resembled something that might've once been some part of a computer. It was going to be more dumb luck than equipment or smarts that factored into whether I could actually pull anything off the drives.

After I'd found what I could, I climbed back into the car and made the hour-long drive back to the apartment, listening to static-y music on the radio. I tried singing along, but half the time I couldn't tell what song was playing, which complicated matters a bit. I really needed to fix the antenna.

When I got back into the apartment and dumped the stuff onto the floor by the couch, Mello was fast asleep. I did my best not to wake him up as I dug around under the couch for my equipment. Not that it would do much good – there was only one drive that was fully intact. But at least it was something.

Despite my best attempts, my rooting around under the couch roused Mello. There was a moment of silence. Then, "Did you get the stuff I told you to?"

"Yes," I said, not removing my face from the space under the couch. "Do you need some more painkillers?"

"Yes," he said, sounding a bit annoyed. Probably a side effect of being in pain.

"I'll get some." I got out from under the couch and stood up, only hitting my head once. Then I went out into the kitchen and got the pills and a glass of water and brought them back out.

Mello was sitting up by then. He took the water and the medicine without a word, then set the glass on the coffee table and laid back down, still not saying anything. I guess when you were hurt talking wasn't high on your priority list.

I spent another minute digging around under the couch and pulled out a tangle of wires. "Yeah!" I said loudly, cracking the back of my head on the underside of the couch yet again as I sat up.

Mello gave me a look, and I held up the wires for him to see. "Stuff," I explained sagely. He rolled his eyes at me. I ignored it and started setting up the stuff to pull the files onto my laptop.

"Is that computer secure?"

"No, Mello, I hack high-powered government agencies with your basic home computer."

"I never know with you."

There was silence as I watched the files copy. While I waited, I picked up the least damaged of the other drives and started poking at it. There was a chance I could make it work again.

"Go make dinner," Mello said after a bit.

I set down the drive I was holding and headed out into the kitchen to find some food. I opened the lazy Susan and went to grab a can of soup, but Mello must've known.

"If you try to feed me any more of that shit I will shoot you!"

I decided to keep that in mind. I might've actually worried if I hadn't confiscated his gun, but as it was I wasn't too concerned.

But it was always better to humor Mello. Just in case.

Reheated pizza it would have to be.

Mello, amazingly, didn't look all too impatient when I returned to the living room with the leftover pizza. He seemed almost…mellow. Mellow Mello was almost unheard-of.

It had to be the drugs.

Whatever the drugs had done to him, though, they certainly hadn't affected his appetite, because he immediately started scarfing down the pizza I gave him. He didn't even question where I'd gotten the pizza.

"Don't worry, I checked, there's no mold." I nudged his feet off the couch and sat down. Mello just put his feet on my lap, and I decided not to tell him that having someone's feet in your lap could really begin to put you off your food. Well, it would put someone other than me off their food – I was desensitized to almost every sort of disgusting thing the world could throw at me.

"I think my taste buds are dead, I'm actually eating this," Mello said. "It's all your shitty food."

I rolled my eyes. "Or maybe it's the smoke inhalation," I suggested. "That's probably not good for you."

Mello eyed the ashtray on the table. "Smoke inhalation is more likely. That explains why you don't realize how shitty your food is."

I opened my mouth to say something, but changed my mind and took a bite of my pizza instead. It wasn't worth the argument. "Do I make a good couch cushion?" I asked after I'd swallowed.

He considered that for a moment. "You're a footrest, not a couch cushion." He took another bite of pizza.

A few moments later, I found myself with a pizza-eating blond in my lap. "Now you're a couch cushion."

…He was definitely high on painkillers. Oh, joy.

Honestly, the situation bordered on awkward.

Mello snarled at his slice of pizza, which was connected to his mouth by several cheese strings. He seemed to be having a bit of a struggle, so I snapped the cheese for him with one hand.

That in and of itself was fine, but then he leaned forward and licked the rest of the cheese off my fingers.

The situation was definitely threatening to sneak past the border patrol of Awkward.

"Comfy?" I asked when he made no move to return to the other end of the couch.

He crumpled up his paper plate and tossed it in the direction of the trash can. "This couch has even less padding than you do."

I took that as a yes.

"Where's the remote?"

"Um…" I felt around under the edge of the couch cushion. "Right here." I pulled it out and handed it to him.

He turned the TV on and began channel-surfing so fast my eyes weren't able to follow. Then he turned it off again and tossed the remote to the other end of the couch. "Nothing good on," he decided.

"There's never anything good on." How he'd been able to tell was a mystery to me, since I hadn't even been able to tell that there had been anything on at all.

"You used to be optimistic."

I shrugged. "That was before I met Philbrook and Ben."

He looked at me. "Who the fuck are Philbrook and Ben?" I could hear the underlying question: _Do I have to worry about them knowing you?_

"Philbrook is my toaster. Ben is the coffeemaker. Don't get too close and they're completely harmless."

"…You _named_ your _toaster_?" From the expression on the visible half of his face, he clearly wasn't so out-of-it that he didn't think I'd lost my already-slipping grip on sanity.

Fortunately, I'd had a bit of a chat with Philbrook several months ago about the same exact thing, so I had an explanation to offer. "Well, I always feel stupid about yelling at appliances, since I know they can't understand me, so I gave them names so they don't seem so inanimate."

Apparently he didn't follow my logic. "You felt stupid bitching at the toaster, so you _named_ the thing?"

"Yeah."

There was a moment of silence, then Mello stood up unsteadily. "You need sleep."

I stood up as well. I was hardly about to argue with that statement. "I'll go to sleep in a bit, I just have to – "

"No. You are sleeping, now, and I am making sure of it." Mello grabbed my arm and half dragged me towards the bedroom, although there was more leaning on his part than actually dragging, since his legs still weren't particularly steady.

"Okay, once you're in bed I'll go sleep on – "

I was unable to finish my thought, as it's difficult to speak when one is completely winded from being tackled onto a bed.

"You are going to sleep right here," Mello said decisively, looking down at me, "and you are _not_ getting up. Got it?"

"I got it. Can you get off? You're crushing my chest." Him laying on top of me while he _wasn't_ high might, in certain circumstances, be perfectly alright, but as it was, if he fell asleep where he was, he'd wake up after the painkillers were out of his system, freak out, and probably strangle me. Didn't really sound like a good way to start my morning.

"If I get off, you'll get up."

Well, that was trust if I ever saw it. "No I won't."

"Too bad." He put his head down on my shoulder.

"…Okay then." I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't wake up dead. Not that you could wake up dead, but…

After a few moments, Mello lifted his head again. "Your jeans are digging into my legs," he informed me. I was about to remind him that he wouldn't have to worry about that if he wasn't using me as a mattress when he rolled off me.

Then he started undoing my belt.

"Mello, what the hell?" This was beyond Border Patrol's jurisdiction – this was a full-scale march on the capital city.

"Blushing, Matt?" he asked, tugging my pants off.

"Well yeah, this is a little awkward!"

He grinned and tossed my jeans into a corner. "I know, isn't it?" he said gleefully. He slid his hands up under my shirt. "Revenge is sweet."

This situation had not only invaded the capital, it was running for the presidency. I decided to put a stop to it. "So this is your idea of revenge?" I asked, sitting up so we were almost nose-to-nose – as if that helped matters – and pulling my shirt off.

"Yes." He pushed me back down and put his head on my shoulder again. "Now go to sleep."

"As if I have a choice," I muttered. Thankfully, he wasn't awake enough to hear that. Since it didn't seem like I'd be getting up any time soon, I pulled my goggles off, hung them on the bedpost, and closed my eyes.

On the downside, Mello was probably going to shoot me when he woke up.

On the upside, well, at least he was warm.


	8. Mocha

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, don't own it.

A/N: Okay, I'm so, so sorry that this took so dang long. There were so many ways this chapter could've gone and I had to choose, though I ended up just stalling and going off on some weird tangents… Anyway, hope you enjoy the randomness. I can't believe I spent this many words on this topic…

**Chapter 8: Mocha**

When I woke up the next morning, I was curled up like a cat under the comforter. My first thought was, _Damn I'm cold_, which spent about five seconds bouncing around in my head before being replaced by _What the hell?_ then almost instantly settling on _I'm not dead!_

Judging by the fact that I was rather chilled, two things were probably true. One, Mello had gotten up at the crack of dawn; and two, the damned heater was malfunctioning. Again.

I yawned and pulled my goggles on, then rolled out of bed and got dressed. Not surprisingly, clothes helped quite a bit with the temperature problem. I still smacked Sally on my way to the kitchen, though; her lying little needle was trying to tell me it was a balmy eighty-seven degrees in my spottily heated apartment. No way was I buying that one.

After the first part of my now-usual morning routine – going outside and smoking a few cigarettes, which I used to do inside but decided not to now due to the presence of a blond with some slight smoke inhalation issues – I found that Mello had made coffee when he'd gotten up and had kindly left some for me. He'd also somehow found a way to make the coffeemaker work the first time around without shorting out the power.

I had to ask him how to do that, because it was a secret I sure as hell hadn't managed to figure out yet.

I never saw the disaster looming.

One minute, I was innocently pouring myself a cup of coffee. The next minute, I took a sip, which I then spat into the sink. It was quickly followed by the rest of the coffee in my mug.

"Mello, what the hell did you do to this coffee?" I yelled.

"Nothing," he shot back from the next room. "It's your own damn fault you've killed your taste buds with all the fucking canned soup!"

I went into the doorway so I could talk without shouting, still carrying the empty mug. "I know what coffee tastes like, and that was _not_ coffee."

"Of course it was." He didn't take his attention away from what he was doing on the laptop – it looked like he'd found my link to Near's system.

"If that was coffee, what the fuck did you put in it?"

He turned his head and looked at me over the back of the couch with a half-faced expression that told me I was _clearly_ missing the obvious. "Chocolate."

I stared at him for a second, then sighed and went back into the kitchen to make a new pot of coffee. One that _wasn't_ ninety percent dark chocolate. Honestly, who the hell would put that much chocolate in coffee? And then drank it? Poisoning someone with it, yeah, I could see that – it was vile enough – but voluntarily drinking it?

Wait. I was talking about Mello. I had seen him add incredible amounts of chocolate to every other food and drink in existence. Why was I surprised?

It took me about fifteen minutes, several colorful names, a few good thumps, and a bunch of paper towels to get Ben to cooperate with me enough to make some more coffee. I poured myself some and went out into the living room to sit on the couch next to Mello, who was reading through the files with what looked like complete and total focus. "Mello," I said, able to communicate with more intelligent words and at a more sane volume now that I wasn't tasting Mello's latest attempt at homicide, "in the future, you really should leave mocha to the professionals."

"You've never appreciated chocolate," Mello said, not looking up from the computer. "That's not my problem."

I took a sip of my non-chocolate coffee and decided that it wasn't worth arguing about. I just had to keep him away from the coffeemaker in the future.

* * *

About half an hour later, I had just settled into my game (Pokemon Yellow – I'd found it under the kitchen table and decided to go back to the basics) when the slam of a laptop lid made me jump. I closed my DS and glanced over at Mello.

He was fixing me with an intense icy stare which was mildly unnerving. "We need to talk."

"Okay." I agreed that there were a lot of things we had to talk about, but I wasn't sure glaring at me like he was trying to burn a hole through my head was strictly necessary for conversation, especially since that look made me want to take a step or two back and look at the floor. Of course, as I was sitting down and looking at the floor anyway, I did neither of those things.

"There's something wrong with the drugs you've been giving me."

Of all the crazy, stupid things I could've thought of to talk about, I had to admit, that possibility hadn't crossed my mind. "Are they not working?"

"No, they've been fucking with my head! What have you been giving me?"

"I can't remember exactly what it is now, it's got a ridiculously long name, but it's heavy duty painkillers. And before you asked, no, I didn't just look for something with a crazy long name, I did my homework."

Mello closed his mouth, since that had apparently been what he'd been about to sass me about. "Where did you get it?" he asked instead.

"The pharmacy. I highly doubt they add hallucinogens to their painkillers or something. That would be even more illegal than hacking them to get the painkillers."

If that disproved his theory, he wasn't planning to admit it. "Show me."

I sighed. "Fine." I got up, retrieved the bottle from the kitchen, and tossed it to him. "Satisfied?"

He frowned at the bottle, then threw it back to me. "I'm not taking them anymore," he informed me.

The bottle very nearly hit me on the head. "Why?"

"I told you, I was as high as a fucking kite last night. That is _not_ happening again."

Okay, I knew Mello had his pride, but this was just insane. "Mello, that's going to hurt. _A lot_."

"I'm not a wimp like you," he snapped. "I can take it."

If it were anyone else, I would probably say that they could do whatever the hell they wanted. However, this was Mello. He was going to be miserable and in pain. And if he was miserable and in pain, that meant _I_ would have to be miserable and in pain as well.

Oh, boy.


	9. Dusting

Disclaimer: I don't own Matt or Mello, but the cleaning implements are all mine :) Oh, and my mom told me about turmeric.

A/N: Okay, my chapters are getting progressively more random. The base idea for this was taken from Dess, when we were debating how Mello would best wreak havoc. I went with this, although it started out as redecoration and ended up as just plain old cleaning. I think this is funnier than redecoration, though.

**Chapter 9: Dusting**

I had thought that I could handle anything that Mello could possibly throw at me. However, I had underestimated his singular abilities to wreak havoc and sow the seeds of total destruction. These abilities were magnified about three hundred seventy percent when he was in excruciating pain. Even so, I thought I could handle him.

That was before he found himself a new foe to take on.

I didn't realize quite what was coming when he vanished into the kitchen. When the loud clanging started, I began to worry. I didn't panic, though, until Mello came back out into the living room, a ragged, moldy feather duster in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. "You're going shopping," he informed me, passing me the paper, which proved to be a list. "There's nothing in your kitchen fit for human consumption."

…I had always thought of myself as human. "I just went shopping two days ago."

He brandished the feather duster. "Canned soup is _not_ food. And there's nothing here that you can use to _clean_, which I really should've expected, judging by the fact that there's nothing clean in this shithole, so you need to go shopping for that too."

I sneezed at the shower of dust the feather duster had sent up in my face. "Where did you get that thing? And why are you waving it around?"

"I found it under your kitchen sink. I'm trying to find somewhere to throw it out. You'll be going with it if you don't get your ass going." He smacked me with it.

I then made the mistake of attempting to relieve him of the feather duster. That resulted in me being bludgeoned with the thing before being forcibly booted out the door and having it locked behind me.

At least I had a list.

* * *

"Sir, can I help you?"

I looked at the salesperson, who was staring at me with what looked like puzzlement. Then again, if I'd seen some guy standing in the cleaning product aisle blankly staring at the shelves, I would've been puzzled too. Nonetheless, I resisted the urge to succumb to my inner Mello and tell him that stores should be arranged in fucking alphabetical order. "Could you tell me where the turmeric is?"

He looked at the shelves, then shrugged. "I can't say I've ever heard of it. What sort of product is it?"

"Um…I think it's for cleaning sinks." That was my pathetic best guess.

He looked at the shelves again. "Well, you might be looking for turpentine," he suggested. "Turmeric sounds to me like it might be a misspelling, so I would go with turpentine."

I checked the list. It sure _looked_ like turmeric, but then again, Mello wrote in cursive, and it had started getting a bit scrawly halfway down the page. "Yeah, I think you might be right," I decided, grabbing a bottle of turpentine off the shelf. "Thanks."

"No problem."

I looked back at my list. Chicken breast – I was pretty sure I could handle that one. Then again, with my luck, I'd get the wrong thing somehow. Truth be told, I did think the turmeric to turpentine misspelling was a bit iffy…

* * *

I was very glad that I'd managed to grab the car keys before I was dusted out the door. I had so many bags of groceries and junk that it took five trips to get them all inside. It might have gone a bit quicker if Mello had helped me with it, but the second I set the first bags down inside the door, he'd snatched them and made for the kitchen. The other bags I brought in similarly vanished when I went to get more.

When I'd gotten all the groceries in, I headed into the kitchen myself, since Mello might want some help putting things away.

All thoughts of assisting him, however, were dusted to the back of my mind by the sight of the kitchen. Or, rather, the room that had the same general setup as the kitchen. Something had happened to it. Most strikingly, the table was not only visible, but _clean_. It hadn't been that uncluttered since the day I'd moved in. And the floor had been mopped, too, by the looks of it.

I didn't even realize I _owned_ a mop, much less a mop that wouldn't have been trashed with the feather duster.

"Matt, quit staring at the floor. I know you've never seen it, but the chicken's thawing." Mello pointed pointedly at a bag of frozen food.

I tore my gaze away from the room I was beginning to doubt was my kitchen. "Right." I pulled the freezer door open, prepared for anything. Sure enough, Mello had attacked that as well, which meant that there was plenty of space for the chicken breast and frozen vegetables, and space to spare.

I was about to start putting things in the fridge when I heard Mello say, "Matt, what the fuck is this for?"

I shut the refrigerator door and looked at him. He was holding up the bottle of turpentine. I shrugged. "I don't know, you're the one who wanted it."

He chucked the bottle at me, annoyed. I'd probably be annoyed too in his position – he had to be hurting. He hadn't been using his left arm at all since I'd gotten back. "What the hell would I need turpentine for?"

I looked at the bottle. Then I thought about the guy at the grocery store. Then I pulled out the list and looked at it again.

Fuck.

"Turmeric's not a cleaning product," I realized. Unfortunately, I was about half an hour too late to correct the mistake.

Mello stared at me. "Of course it's not! It's a _spice_!" He pointed at the list. "Did it not occur to you that I was looking for _spices_ when you saw cinnamon and rosemary and pepper? Why the hell would I suddenly put fucking paint thinner in the middle of those?"

…I had to admit, I couldn't find a reason. "Why do you need so many spices?" I asked, edging past him to shove the bottle of turpentine under the sink to make friends with the box of SOS pads and the dish soap.

"Because so far you've fed me nothing but canned soup and microwaved pizza, both of which are utterly disgusting. If I have to eat chicken soup, I'm going to eat _good_ chicken soup, with spices, without all the MSG and preservatives."

Apparently the Mafia was involved in not only organized crime, but those campaigns to eat healthy!

As if he'd read my mind and decided to prove me wrong about the Mafia support of good nutrition, Mello grabbed a half-eaten bar of chocolate off the counter and snapped off a chunk, giving me a glare just daring me to ask him about cooking.

Maybe Mello just…wanted to cook. Or he was so sick of eating my food that he truly could not stomach any more of it. Or he was in enough pain that he'd lost his tenuous grip on sanity and spiraled down to a level where cooking seemed perfectly normal to him.

Option three seemed most likely.

At any rate, I decided to watch my back – in his present state, I was seriously considering the possibility that I might find myself eating turpentine along with chicken soup.


	10. Personification

Disclaimer: I don't own Matt or Mello, nor do I own Zeb, who belongs to . Yay Zeb! :D

A/N: Okay, sorry about the wait, I was having trouble with this chapter. But good news! I have about two chapters planned out for after this one! And the best part is that I may be beginning to wade out of the bog of fluff I've found myself in! Alright, on with the story here.

**Chapter 10: Personification**

Somehow, Mello and I both made it through dinner alive. I didn't die from poisoned soup; Mello didn't die laughing. Something about my request to switch bowls struck him as funny, and he laughed even harder when he realized that I was dead serious.

It was so good to know he took me seriously.

"You get to do the dishes," he informed me after we were finished, getting up and dumping his bowl in the sink.

"I figured, since you cooked." I turned the water on and started filling the dishpan in the sink.

Mello leaned against the fridge. I wasn't sure how he was doing that – I could see him twitching, and leaning on the refrigerator in such a way that he could watch me must've hurt like hell. "Does your dishwasher not work?"

I added a few squirts of dish soap to the water. "No, it's completely dead. It was like that when I moved in."

"It? No he? No she?"

"It was already dead when I moved in, I wasn't going to name it post-mortem, that would just be wrong."

Even though I wasn't looking at him, I could imagine the look on his face. It was the same one I'd seen when I'd first explained about Philbrook. "Matt," he said, with the air of someone talking to someone particularly dim, "it's a machine. It can't be dead, since it was never _alive_!"

Before I could respond, there was a ding from the other end of the counter, followed by a rattle, which was quickly silenced, presumably because Mello had glared at poor Philbrook hard enough to fry his circuitry. "Have you seriously never named an appliance? Ever?"

"No. I'm not that stupid."

"Piece of furniture?"

He paused. "…No."

Well, that was the most blatant lie I'd heard all day. "Spill," I commanded.

"I said I never named furniture!"

I grinned over my shoulder at him. "Oh, come on, you have too! Come on, tell me, it might be related to somebody here! You could find your coffee table's long-lost cousin or something!"

The annoyance was practically radiating off him by then. "I've been meaning to ask you, what did you do with my gun?"

"You're not going to shoot me because I made fun of your beloved throw rug," I said. The idea of a pained, annoyed, _armed_ Mello didn't strike me as a wise one, though. Not that I thought he would shoot me, but you could never be too careful.

"It wasn't a fucking throw rug!" There was a thud a moment later as he kicked the bottom of the fridge, having realized his mistake.

I put the last bowl in the drying rack and turned around, leaning back against the sink. "Tell you what: If you tell me what you named, I'll tell you where your gun is, as long as you promise not to shoot me. Deal?"

He glared at me. "The couch. Now tell me where the fuck my gun is."

"What did you call it?"

If my sanity hadn't already been in question, goading Mello probably would've put it to the test. He looked murderous. "Zeb. Gun, now, or you're going to join your dishwasher in the afterlife."

…There might've been weight behind that threat if he hadn't flinched in the middle of the delivery. "I'll go get it, hold on a second." I headed into the bedroom and pulled out the bottom drawer, then rifled through the clothes until I found the gun. I grabbed it and stood up, then turned around and found myself face to face with Mello. He must've followed me, though I couldn't understand how someone who couldn't stop twitching in pain could manage to be that quiet.

Some of his annoyance seemed to dissipate when he took the gun out of my hand. He looked it over, then smirked. "You know nothing about guns." It wasn't a question.

"Why would I? I'm a gamer, not a gunman."

"Don't your games have guns?"

"Mello, most games simplify it to 'pick up the bullets lying on the ground and shoot people' with the occasional variation of 'pick your weapon'. Not exactly the best way to get a full education in guns."

He snorted. "I told you those things were useless." He took aim at the wall, not touching the trigger, thankfully. The neighbors wouldn't appreciate that. Then he lowered the gun again. "At least you didn't shoot yourself in the foot or something stupid like that."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, no, I made a point of _not_ pointing it at myself. I _am_ acquainted with the basics of guns, like 'it'll shoot where you're pointing it'."

"Well, you're not a complete idiot. That's comforting." His shoulder twitched again and he marched out of the room. I head him pull a cupboard open in the kitchen, then a vicious snap. Either he'd practiced for years to make that kind of sound or my apartment had ridiculously good acoustics, because I was two rooms away and I heard it loud and clear.

I headed out to the living room and flopped on the couch, and was joined a moment later by Mello, who had a bar of chocolate in one hand and the gun in the other. He put the gun on the coffee table and sat down at the other end of the couch, sprawling so his feet were in my lap.

"…Why Zeb?"

He glared at me. It must've been maddening that I'd teased that bit of information out of him. "Why the hell do you think?"

"Zebra stripes?" I guessed. He didn't answer, so I assumed I was right. "Is that why you like using me as your footrest? Because the stripes remind you of him? Wait, was Zeb a he or a she?"

"Matt," he said warningly, "shut up. And stop grinning!"

I, of course, continued to smile. "I'm guessing guy, Zeb seems like a guy's name." I wasn't quite fast enough to get away from the kick he landed on my side.

There was a long moment of silence, punctuated by snaps of chocolate.

"…Maybe I should name _my_ couch…"

I ducked the wrapper that he sent flying towards my head with more speed than any bit of airborne foil should ever have.


	11. Strayed

Disclaimer: I don't own it, simple as that. And DessArtem is usually responsible for the brilliant ideas.

A/N: Okay, after much deliberation (all of five minutes) with Dess, I decided that the old version of this chapter just didn't work. I hadn't thought it through, and it turned out that the direction it was going the way I had written it wouldn't bring the fic anywhere it needs to go. So I decided to rewrite. And came up with more crap. Then did it again with the same result. Then I realized I just had to nix the cat and the car altogether, at least for this chapter. So I apologize to anybody who read this chapter the first time around and liked the cat. Don't worry – he'll appear later. I'm certain of that. So will the car. I have some plans for the car…

**Chapter 11: Strayed**

I should've expected something spectacular when Mello fell silent. He'd spent most of he day pestering me until I finally unearthed a book that he hadn't read. It took him about an hour to read it. Then he went back to pestering me until I finally retreated to a corner of the bedroom and he decided it wasn't worth it to follow me. That was the first sign that something was up.

I didn't worry about it until I realized that I hadn't heard anything from him for an hour and a half. I had a looming and, unfortunately, rational fear that he'd keeled over.

There was no sign of life when I walked into the living room. "Mello?"

Nothing.

Worried, I crossed the room and looked over the back of the couch. What I saw shocked me into momentary speechlessness.

Then I burst out laughing.

Mello jumped like a frightened cat. He apparently hadn't been expecting me to reappear. "What?" he demanded with the look of someone who is trying not to look as though they've just been caught doing something they shouldn't be.

For my part, I probably looked like an idiot who was trying to both smother laughter and form words at the same time and failing spectacularly at both. "Where'd you find that?" I finally managed to ask.

"Under the couch cushion." He shut the screen of the SP on whatever game he'd been playing. "Your living room is a wreck, you have all sorts of shit under there. How the hell do you sit on this couch and not notice?"

"Norwald's good at covering up the lumps. What game were you playing, anyway?"

He stared at me for a moment. "Norwald?"

I shrugged. "He needed a name. He seems like a Norwald, don't you think?"

"Matt, it is a couch. It is not a he. Furniture and appliances and whatever the hell else you've named are not alive. They are metal, and inanimate, and I am going to throw your fucking toaster out the window if you keep giving things genders and names!"

If I wasn't used to Mello, I might've actually considered that to be either a rant or a threat. "I'm never leaving you alone with Philbrook again," I informed him, moving his feet so I could sit down at the end of the couch. "I'm worried about what you might do with him."

As I was already at the end of the couch, there was nowhere to go to avoid the kick Mello landed on my ribs in retaliation. "Oh, chill, I was kidding."

Mello put his feet on my lap, flipped the SP open and didn't say anything.

"What are you playing?" I asked, for third time.

He smirked. "I'm playing Erase Matt's Game. That's the only videogame worth playing." He turned the SP off with satisfaction and tossed it on the coffee table.

"Oh, admit it, videogames aren't as boring as you thought they were," I needled, grinning.

Mello kicked me again. "It's more fun to piss you off."

"I had guessed that," I said dryly. Not that I really got pissed, but it must've been his goal in life to manage it someday.

"You make it sound like I never do anything else."

"No, you just have way too much fun doing it."

"Au contraire, I have just the right amount of fun doing it," he said, smiling wickedly.

"You know, that look always makes me wonder why I'm sitting so close to you."

He prodded me in the side with his foot. "Because you're too damn optimistic and keep thinking that pissing you off isn't as amusing as it was the last time you sat near me."

I rolled my eyes. He couldn't see that, of course, but he would know. "Or I know that you're bored and you complain less about it if I'm within kicking range."

Mello proved my point by thumping my leg with his foot, then fell silent, looking bored once again.

Come to think of it, I was bored too. "…I wonder what else is under the couch cushions," I mused.

"Nothing interesting. I checked."

There went that idea. "What about under the couch?"

"Do you not have any idea what's under your own furniture?"

I shrugged and moved his legs again so I could get off the couch and look underneath it. "You know, there's still a ton of junk down here, even though I moved a bunch of it a while ago."

"That's because your method of 'cleaning' is to kick everything under the couch. Why are you surprised it's a mess?"

"Hey, I see something I thought I'd lost!" I was about to begin a rescue mission when I realized that Mello's head had appeared upside down next to me. "Mello, what are you _doing_?"

He gave me a look that said 'duh' just as clearly upside down as right side up. "I'm looking under the couch. What does it _look_ like I'm doing?"

I rolled my eyes again and stretched out on the floor so I was low enough to reach under the couch properly. I had just grabbed the laptop and was pulling it from the abyss for a joyous reunion…

And that was when Mello fell off the couch. And of course, Murphy's law dictated that he had to land right on top of me, and that I had to be startled enough by it to drop the laptop on my fingers and hit my head on the underside of the couch.

But then again, I wasn't the one who'd landed on a burned shoulder and was whimpering in pain, so perhaps I shouldn't have been complaining. "Mello? Are you okay?"

"…No," he mumbled.

Well, at least he was honest he was honest about it. That was more than I could say of him since I'd brought him home. "How badly did you hurt yourself?"

"I slammed my fucking shoulder into the floor, what the hell do you think?" The weight shifted off my legs, and I abandoned the laptop and scooted back out from under the couch. Mello was sitting on the floor, leaning on his good arm and looking like he was in utter agony.

I couldn't _imagine_ why.

"Mello, I'm getting you some painkillers," I informed him. "And I don't care what you say, you are taking them."

I was glad that, for once, he didn't try to fight for his misplaced pride.


	12. Agents of Chaos

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, which is probably good, because me and Mello would have many more issues if that were the case.

A/N: Okay, this is another chapter that took at least three rewrites, but I got it under control faster. I talked to MRS-Jeevas over on MangaBullet and she suggested I let Mello do what he wanted to do for a while, and it helped immensely. So a big thank-you to MRS-Jeevas. And to DessArtem, who's been faithfully beta-ing this stuff so that I have my proper Mello and semicolons. Love them both.

**Chapter 12: Agents of Chaos**

I had expected that once Mello was medicated, I would be less worried about him. Indeed, he didn't seem to be in extreme pain anymore, which was good. He wasn't even complaining, which was almost a relief.

It would've been more of a relief, though, if he hadn't been staring so fixedly at the ceiling. He hadn't made a sound since I'd given him the painkillers. If there had been anything remotely interesting about my ceiling I wouldn't have been quite as concerned, but this ceiling was made of the same boring tile as the ceiling in the bedroom and I was sure he was sick to death of staring at it.

"Matt…?"

"Yeah?"

"What did you do to your ceiling?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"Because there's…something…_wrong_ with it."

I looked up at the ceiling. It looked perfectly normal to me. "Mello, there's nothing wrong with the ceiling."

Mello frowned. "…Are you sure?"

"Positive. Are you feeling okay?" I wasn't entirely sure why I was asking, since it was clear _something_ was wrong.

He considered the question for a moment. "I'm a bit dizzy," he finally decided, not taking his eyes off the ceiling.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "That's weird; this didn't happen last time. It's on the warning label on the painkillers, but…"

I stopped.

I looked at Mello.

He looked at me.

There was a long, long silence.

"You've already taken painkillers today, haven't you."

He glared at me. "Of course I haven't!" As if that wasn't one of the biggest whoppers I'd ever heard. "Why would I do that?"

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe because you were in mind-numbing pain? Seems pretty logical to me. Next time you're having an intelligent moment, tell me, because we clearly can't both be logical at the same time without you overdosing and seeing pretty pictures in my ceiling."

"It's not _my_ fault," he informed me. "I never expect _you_ to be logical."

If he hadn't been high, I might've actually been insulted. "Any other supremely logical things you've done today that I should know about?" There was no response, which was as good as a yes. "Out with it."

Mello's only response to that was to turn the other way and cross his arms over his chest in a gesture somewhere between defiance and sulking. It was probably meant to be one or the other, but it was beyond me to tell which.

Sighing, I got up and headed to the kitchen to get something to eat. I was pretty sure there was some sandwich meat in the fridge. However, I'd barely set foot in the kitchen when something that resembled a small, black missile went hurtling past my feet, nearly tripping me. "Holy shit!" I looked in the direction that the thing had gone. "Mello, did you see that?"

There was no response from the living room. He was sulking, then.

"Mello, quit sulking! Did you see that thing?"

"What thing?"

I went back into the living room, keeping my eyes peeled. "That black thing that just came shooting out here, didn't you see it?"

"Nope."

Not only could he see things on the ceiling, he couldn't see things on the floor. Lovely. "Where the hell did it go, then?" I muttered, dropping to my knees to look under the couch. At first I didn't see anything, but then I heard the sound of something skittering on the floor and a brief blur that looked like something leaving the space under the couch.

"I saw it," Mello informed me as I stood up.

"Really? I'm not surprised. Is it what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is?"

I was about to answer when something black, furry-looking, and, by the looks of it, whiskered, appeared around the bedroom doorway.

"That's a cat," Mello said. As soon as he spoke, the cat vanished again.

I rolled my eyes. "Thank you, Captain Obvious." He smacked me in the side, but I ignored it. "Come on, we've got to go catch it and get it out of here. How'd it get in, anyway?"

There was no response from Mello.

I decided I didn't want to delve into what he had or hadn't done that might've let the cat in. "I'll go see if I can find where the thing went," I said, heading into the bedroom.

I couldn't see hide nor hair of the little beast. It had to be in there; I'd seen it right in the doorway. I looked under the bed. No cat. Under the dresser? No cat.

Dammit, I did not need a cat loose! I already had one agent of chaos in the apartment; I didn't need another!

"The closet door's open a crack," Mello suggested helpfully from the doorway.

"I was just getting to that." I went over to the closet and opened the door properly. No cat. "It's not in here."

"Did you check the bed?"

"No, Mello, I checked everywhere else and neglected the most obvious place in the room."

"I never know with you." I heard him walk up behind me. "Your closet's a mess," he informed me. "You really need to clean."

I turned around to give him the most exasperated look I could come up with. "Really? I guess it's not my top priority right now." I kicked a box behind me in frustration.

And that was when a little furry bullet shot between my feet, collided with Mello, and roared off.

We both jumped, startled. "Where the hell–" I started, but I was cut off by Mello, who had lost his balance. He tried to catch himself, but ended up overbalancing me as well. We both landed in the closet, which joined in the falling fun by dropping several boxes on top of Mello.

"Ow," I mumbled, attempting to sit up to get away from an edge of a box that was digging into the small of my back. But no dice – I couldn't get my hands underneath me because of all the boxes, and even if I could have, Mello was sprawled on top of me. "Mello? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, not moving.

He may not have cared about getting up, but that box was really digging into my back. "Can you get up?"

He pushed himself up off me a bit, looked behind him, and then looked down at me. "Fuck. There's a box on my legs. What do you keep in this closet, Matt, bricks?"

"I don't know; I don't remember what's in every box in the closet." He didn't seem to either notice or care that his face was about an inch and a half away from mine. I was attempting to do the same thing, but failed miserably. He also didn't seem to care that his hair was in my face.

If I was going to name the one positive thing about that particular situation, it would be that his hair smelled really, really good.

On the negative side: I was going to kill that cat.

If we ever managed to get out of the closet, anyway.


	13. Flexibility

Disclaimer: Death Note is not mine, and I'm sure it never will be. Oh well.

A/N: Okay, I was so excited to write this chapter that I managed to get it done in record time. It might've been even faster if I hadn't spent half my study hall today giggling at it. People probably thought I was nuts. But anyway. Thanks to DessArtem for giving me some (probably most) of the ideas in this chapter, and thank you to Miyamashi for giving me a lovely quote to put in. And if you are ready to send me threats after this chapter, let me kindly redirect you to Dess, who has advised me to do what I did. I shall say no more.

**Chapter 13: Flexibility**

"Stupid fucking box!" Mello yelled after a minute or two of useless struggling to free ourselves from the wreckage. "I hate this fucking closet!"

"Mello, you're yelling in my ear."

"Well _do_ something!"

"I can't. That would be the problem." I tried to sit up at least enough to see behind me. For me to do that, Mello had to give me head space, and the only way for him to do that was to brace himself on my chest and push himself up, which pushed me back down and really defeated the point of the whole thing. "This isn't working."

Above me, Mello growled in frustration.

Personally, I was beginning to wonder what would happen if we couldn't get out at all. I could see it now: "Building prepared for demolition, two bodies found inside. Full story on page A8." Definitely not how I wanted to go. Although I could appreciate the irony of me dying in a closet. With Mello, no less. And _Mello_ dying in the closet…

I hadn't realized I was laughing until Mello fixed me with a glare made of pure ice. "What the hell's so funny about this?"

Based on the look he was giving me, now was not the best time to explain my whole dying-in-the-closet scenario to him. "Nothing. Can you see anything useful?"

"Yes, I can see an idiot laughing his ass off about us being trapped in a closet." He paused. "Oh, wait, you're asking me if I see anything _useful_."

"I'm wounded. There is seriously nothing in here too push that thing off with?"

Mello glared at me again. "Yes, Matt, I saw something five minutes ago and didn't mention it, because getting the circulation to my legs cut off is just so much _fun_!"

"No need to bite my head off." I craned my neck, trying to see into the corner. "Is that a curtain rod over there?"

Mello squinted. "Something like that. We can't reach it, though."

"Oh yeah?" I muttered, twisting around and reaching for it. "Almost…aaaalmost…yes?" I could practically feel it, I was so close.

But I couldn't reach it. "No." I flopped back down to my original position on the boxes. "Dammit. Almost had it, too."

"I'll try." Mello stretched out and grabbed at the curtain rod, but didn't end up having any more luck than I'd had. "Fuck," he muttered, putting his head down on my shoulder. He laid there for a moment, then his head shot up and he looked at me with a hint of a grin on his face. "Where are your feet?"

"At the ends of my legs."

He punched me in the side. Not that he could really hit me very hard, considering the angle. "Seriously."

I wiggled my toes. "Somewhere around the place where your feet are, I expect." I was beginning to see where he was going with this.

"Can you kick the box off me?"

"I can try." I managed to kick my legs free, then started trying to kick the box. Problem was, I couldn't figure out where the box _was_. "Mello, where the hell is the box?"

"On my legs, cutting off my circulation!"

I rolled my eyes. "Be a little more specific, please?"

"The far edge is just past my knees, does that help?"

"A bit." I got my feet on the sides of the box and tried to pull on it, but for some reason I had chosen that one day to wear socks, so I had no purchase on the cardboard at all.

"What are you _doing_?" Mello demanded.

"I'm trying to pull the box off you!"

"Well, if it was light enough to do that with I would've been able to get it off myself," he said crossly. "Just kick the damn thing off."

Grumbling under my breath at the cat and the closet, I attempted to get my feet up far enough to kick the box. Or shove the box. Or at least _move_ the box. "I'm not that flexible!" I finally yelled in frustration.

"You can't be serious."

"Mello, I can't even touch my toes. My legs don't bend this way."

He shook his head. "You are such a wimp." Then, in what I assumed was a slightly misguided attempt to remedy my horrible flexibility, he grabbed my knees and pulled them at least a foot closer to my shoulders.

"Ow!" No, my legs were definitely not meant to bend that way. I'd always known I wasn't cut out to be a gymnast. …Also, this was definitely the most…iffy position I'd ever found myself in. Ever. Without question. If someone were to walk into that room right then – not that anyone would, as we were the only people in the apartment – their eyes would quite possibly bleed.

But I could reach the box.

"Can you get it?" Mello asked.

"Yeah, once you let go of me so I can kick the thing and save my muscles from snapping."

"Oh. Sorry." He let go of my knees, and I jammed my feet into the box so hard that it landed on the floor outside the closet with just one hit.

"Circulation!" Mello said gleefully, and for a minute I almost thought he looked like he wanted to hug me. Then he pushed himself off me and stood up unsteadily, leaning down to attempt to rub feeling back into his leg.

I watched him for a second. "Help, I'm trapped, I can't get out," I said monotonously. Mello probably wouldn't get the reference, but I could still be amused by it.

Mello leaned on the doorframe, then reached down to grab my hand, and between the two of us we managed to pull me to my feet.

"Mello, if we ever fall into a closet again, _you_ will be on bottom," I informed him, "because I do not have the flexibility to do that ever again. You nearly dislocated my legs."

He smirked. "I've never heard of someone dislocating their legs. Is that even possible?"

"It is now."

He laughed. "Poor you. Let's go eat. I'm starving."

"Same here. It's hard to get out of a closet." I was just realizing how odd that sounded, and how much it connected to my amusing little thought about us dying together in the closet, when I saw that the front door was open. I stopped. "Mello, why's the door open?"

"I don't know," he answered after a moment. "Did you leave it open?"

I looked at him, the pieces falling into place. "No, I didn't, because I haven't been outside today. You, on the other hand…"

"I'm going to go make lunch," he said quickly, vanishing into the kitchen.

Would calling him an idiot again do any good at all?

I supposed not.


	14. Even in Dreams

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, so sadly, there's a good chance that none of their awkwardness ever actually happened.

A/N: Okay, I meant to get this one done sooner. I really did. (Actually, I tried to get it done ages ago, because Interstella was going away, but I failed at that :() But anyway, I managed to finish it, and it only took me three tries for the ending! (That's fairly good for me, at least with Matt and Mello.)

**Chapter 14: Even in Dreams**

It was getting close to the time most sane people called bedtime when Mello and I had settled down from the…incident with the closet, and the subsequent dragging of boxes out of the closet, and the fruitless hunt for the cat after that. But after we'd collapsed on the couch to watch a rerun of House, M.D. before we both keeled over from the insanity of it all, I remembered something. I'd been on a rescue mission earlier, and I'd completely forgotten the poor victim I was rescuing!

"Matt," Mello asked as I got off the couch, "what are you doing now?"

I was already halfway under the couch before I answered. "I'm rescuing Nigel!"

"You're what?"

"I'm rescuing Nigel." I could see her, right where I'd dropped her when Mello had fallen on me before.

"Who is - ?" Mello began as I reemerged from under the couch, holding up Nigel proudly. He stared at the laptop, then at me. "No, Matt, you are _not_ naming anything else! No!"

"She was named a long time before you got here," I informed him, sitting back down, brushing some dust off Nigel, then turning her on. "Hey, she still works!"

Mello looked about ready to blow a fuse. "_It is not a she, it is an __**it**__! It is not a person!_"

"Mello, I hope you know that you lost your high ground on this issue when you told me about Zeb." I waited while Nigel booted up. God, I'd forgotten how slow she was.

I didn't see that Mello was glaring at me until he punched me in the arm, which made me look up. "What?" I asked. "I'm just pointing out that you're being a bit hypocritical."

"Just because I called it Zeb did not mean that I thought of it as a person. Unlike you, I am capable of recognizing that inanimate objects do not have genders or personalities."

"Did you know that when people lie, as a general rule they don't use contractions?" I asked as I typed in my password. "Not that I'm implying anything."

I could tell Mello was getting annoyed. "Just because you have a distorted view of reality doesn't mean _I_ do."

"Says the man who was seeing things in my ceiling this afternoon and is probably still high from pain medication." I wasn't really paying attention to the argument, as I'd found the files on various students that I'd downloaded off the server at Wammy's before I'd left. There were no pictures, of course, since I'd downloaded the files long after the start of Kira's "reign".

"Matt!" Mello said loudly, probably for the third or fourth time. "What are you doing?"

"Looking at old files."

"Old files on…?" he prompted, scooting over to look over my shoulder. "…You have the student files from Wammy's House?"

"Yeah. They're out of date, though."

"Obviously. Why do you have them?"

I shrugged and closed the laptop. "I downloaded them before I left in case I needed them. They were really kind of useless."

He yawned. "I'm not surprised."

I shoved some papers off the coffee table and set Nigel down carefully. "You should go to bed."

"Says the man who I've only seen sleep once in the last week," Mello mocked. "As far as I know, you haven't slept since I forced you to."

"And _you_ can't make that argument, given the number of times I've had to force _you_ to go to sleep more times than you've had to force _me_."

That took a bit of wind out of his sails. "I'll go to sleep if you do," he proposed.

"Deal."

"And I mean actually putting pajamas on and sleeping, not just laying down and staring at the ceiling," Mello clarified.

"Got it."

* * *

It was pitch black in the living room when I woke up. I was shivering because my blanket had slipped onto the floor while I was asleep, and my goggles were digging into the side of my skull. But that wasn't why I was awake. For a moment I wasn't sure what had woken me up; then I heard the bedsprings squeak in protest as Mello moved again in his sleep, and I realized that the sound must've woken me. That was worrisome, because I could sleep through all sorts of noises, and to wake me up, he must've been moving a lot just a minute or so ago.

I pulled my goggles down around my neck and rolled over to look at the clock. 1:27 AM. Of course, I hadn't bothered to check the time before I'd gone to sleep, so that didn't tell me anything.

The bedsprings creaked again, and I rolled off the couch, nearly tripped over the blanket on the floor, then padded into the bedroom. It was so dark in there that I could barely make out Mello's outline against the bed. He seemed to have kicked most of the blankets off onto the floor, and he was whimpering and mumbling incoherently every few moments. It didn't take a genius to realize that he was having one hell of a bad dream. I could remember him having a few nightmares back at Wammy's, but usually he'd wake up on his own as soon as I realized he was having one. But it didn't seem like that would happen this time.

Ignoring the little voice in my mind telling me that I might be about to do something genuinely stupid, I crouched beside the bed. "Mello?" He didn't wake up. If anything, he seemed more distressed. Even more concerned now, I shook his arm, trying to pull him out of the nightmare. "Mello!"

I wasn't sure how it happened, or even what happened. One moment I was crouched down with one hand on Mello's arm; the next, my knees had slammed into the floor, Mello had the collar of my shirt in a death grip, and there was cold, hard metal against my temple. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a gun Mello was holding to my head.

For a long, long moment, neither of us moved. I didn't even breathe; I just stared wide-eyed at the dim silhouette of Mello's face. "Matt?" he finally said, sounding shaken.

I swallowed. "Yeah."

For another few seconds, he didn't move. Then he let go of my shirt, and I heard the gun fall onto the nightstand. "Never do that again!" he said…not angrily. I couldn't quite place how he sounded.

"I won't." I tried to get my voice to stop shaking. I had thought I was prepared for anything Mello might throw at me, but _damn_. "That's not loaded, is it?"

"It is."

That scared me. "Why the hell are you sleeping with a loaded gun?"

Mello didn't respond. The bedsprings creaked, then the headboard, and I could see a dim Mello-shaped outline leaning against it, his knees pulled up to his chest.

Still trembling a little bit from the adrenaline, I climbed onto the bed and sat down next to him. A few seconds later, without saying a word, Mello put his head on my shoulder. I could feel him shaking at least as much as I was. I put my arm around him, careful of the burn.

"…I'm sorry."

"It's okay."


	15. Outsider

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Duh.

A/N: I was definitely listening to The Outsider by A Perfect Circle for the majority of this chapter. It was a fitting song to write to. I had a lot of fun with this chapter, once I figured out what was going on and figured out why Matt (for once, it was him and not Mello) was refusing to cooperate with me. I think I may start writing longer chapters - this one seems to flow pretty well, rather than being chopped off close to 1,000 words. Anyway, enjoy, and sorry for the (once again) slow update.

**Chapter 15: Outsider**

I couldn't remember falling asleep, but I must've, because when I woke up, I could see sunbeams starting to creep through the half-open door, and my arms were still around Mello, who was curled up against my chest, still fast asleep. I was also cold, presumably because the blankets were bunched up at the end of the bed. I started to sit up to grab them, but my left arm was pinned under Mello, so I couldn't get far.

Mello grunted in his sleep as I moved, then shifted a little closer. If I didn't know better, I would've said he was cuddling. It was cute. …Not that I'd ever tell him something like that. I cautiously put my other arm around him again. He slept on, looking content. I smiled and closed my eyes again. Screw it – I would just go back to sleep and wait for him to wake me up.

As it turned out, that didn't take as long as I'd expected. It was only seconds later that I found myself being shoved off the bed and onto the floor by Mello, who seemed to have woken up enough to register that I was in his personal space. I felt rather bruised from that landing, on both my pride and my butt. I was also rather annoyed, since I didn't appreciate being shoved off the bed by someone who moments ago didn't want me to get up to grab the blankets.

To his credit, Mello looked a bit sheepish as he looked over the edge of the bed at me. "Sorry. Are you okay?"

"Fine." I sat up, pulled my goggles over my eyes, then stood up. Yeah, I felt bruised. "How'd you sleep?"

It was hard to tell though the orange, but Mello seemed to turn slightly pink. "Better." Before I could say that was good, he hopped out of bed. "I'm going to go eat," he informed me, then headed into the kitchen.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to make sense of everything. I decided to think in the shower, since my hair could use a scrub, judging by the feel.

* * *

When I got out of the shower ten minutes later, Mello was sitting on the couch, several laptops spread before him on the coffee table. I could tell from a distance that one of them was the one that was linked to the SPK system. Another looked like a news website, and I couldn't identify what the third one was. Curious, I made my way to the couch and leaned on the back of it, reading over Mello's shoulder.

It was a minute before Mello noticed me. "…Matt, what are you doing?"

"Reading," I said, studying the news report on the screen. It was in Japanese, so I couldn't just skim. Though I wished I could, because there was an awful lot of waffle in there between actual bits of information. "I haven't been staying on top of this."

"You're not getting involved," Mello said, looking at me with a warning in his eyes, "so you don't need to keep on top of anything."

I shrugged, ignoring the warning. "I want to help. I don't think this is something you want to take on solo."

"Matt." I looked at him, glad that my goggles insulated me somewhat from the glare he was directing at me. "You are not getting involved." His tone of voice clearly meant that this discussion was over.

Not that tone of voice would ever stop me. "Backup's always good to have."

"What part of 'you are not getting involved' did you not understand?"

"Um, the part where you're telling me I can't get involved? Because from what I can see, you don't have the high ground on that issue."

"Matt! This isn't a game! If you get into this, you could get killed!"

"Yeah, I got that. You could get killed, too, but that's not stopping you." I returned my eyes to the Japanese article on the laptop.

Mello slammed the laptop shut. "I am _not_ letting you get yourself killed in this!" he snarled. "So stay out of it!" He gathered up the computers, stood up, and went into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

If he thought I was going to let him end the argument like that, he was mistaken. I crossed the room and pulled the door open again. "Mello, I just want to help you. You can't say you don't need someone to watch your back."

He spun around. "I don't need help! Get out!"

I abandoned my position in the doorway and walked into the room properly. "Mello, I get that you want to make your own way in this. I don't want to stop you. I just don't want you getting yourself killed in the process, okay?"

"The fact that I could die is all the more reason for you to _stay out of it_! I'm not going to let you get hurt! Dammit, I won't let you get killed watching my fucking back!"

By that time, I was reaching the point where I was more focused on winning whatever argument this might turn into than sticking to my original guns. Of course, years of dealing with Mello told me that if I could win one argument, he would temporarily give up and I could regain the ground I'd lost when I'd gone off course. So I shrugged. "Fine," I said, but before he could look properly triumphant, I continued, "I'll just do it on my own then."

Mello went from triumphant to enraged in roughly two and a half seconds. "No you won't!"

"It's my right as much as it is yours. You can't stop me."

"Just watch me!"

I spread my arms and walked closer until I was right in front of him – all the better a target to hit. "What are you going to do? You can't stop me."

"Don't push this," Mello snarled. "Stay the fuck out of it. You don't know what the hell you're doing, getting into this."

"Mello, you can't win. There is nothing you can do to stop me."

That was calculated to make him flustered and force him into trying to out-yell me. When that stage was reached, I could usually win. But within moments I realized that I had miscalculated. Badly. I had left the painkillers out of the equation, or the pain, or something else that I had missed entirely. Whatever the case, Mello was certainly angry, but he didn't start yelling.

He socked me in the face instead.

That sent me staggering back a few steps. _Fuck_, he could throw a punch. Of course, the last time I'd been punched with any intent to injure was when I was about eleven, and it hadn't been Mello. As a rule, Mello never did anything more than smack the back of my head when I was being particularly stupid. Once upon a time, he used to send anyone who punched me like that running for the hills. And I could see why. That fucking _hurt_. …Which pretty much shot his 'I don't want you to get hurt' argument to hell. It also really pissed me off. I wasn't going to let him win this on sheer shock value.

Unfortunately for me, I never had gotten the hang of fighting. That was Mello's territory, and he proved it when he caught my kick before it connected and used my own momentum to send me flying across the room. I hit the wall next to the door hard enough to see stars. I dizzily wondered exactly what the point of this fight was, but that took a backseat in my mind to figuring out how to _win_ the fight. …Not that I could see a way to do that. It was pretty clear by then that the best I could hope for was dignified failure, which I was perfectly okay with. I wasn't so competitive I couldn't walk out on this.

Well, I wasn't competitive enough to keep fighting, but I was mad enough to flip Mello the birdie before I turned and walked out the door. It certainly made me feel better about walking away.

It apparently didn't give Mello nearly the same emotional satisfaction, though, because I'd barely gone two steps out the door when he tackled me from behind with enough force to slam my head into the – thankfully carpeted – floor. My first instinct was to push myself up and throw him off me, but he was a step ahead of me. Before I could even think of reacting, he'd grabbed my left arm and wrenched it up behind my back. "Do what I tell you and stay the fuck out of this!" he growled.

I forced myself to ignore the pain in my arm. "Fuck you. I'll do what I want."

Mello twisted my arm further. "Stop fucking contradicting me to be difficult! You are not going to get into this! You'll end up dead!"

That was the last straw. If he was going to be like that, fine, but I wasn't going to let him lie to me about it. "Yes, your concern for my health and safety is really touching, especially now." I turned my head as far as I could, but unfortunately couldn't glare at him. My goggles blocked my line of sight. "Stop fucking lying to me. If you don't trust me not to fuck it up on you, fine, just don't give me some bullshit about wanting to protect me."

Mello was still for a few seconds, then the grip on my arm loosened. "How can you think I don't trust you?"

"Well what the hell am I _supposed_ to think?" I snapped. "You're quite obviously not trying to keep me safe. I'm just a liability who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing! You say that, then ask me why the fuck I think you don't _trust_ me?"

He released his grip on my arm. Then, before I could collect myself to try to throw him off, he smacked me in the back of the head. "I let you take care of me in the weakest state I've been in, drugged enough that I can't see straight, much less think straight, and you think I don't fucking _trust_ you?"

"It's not like you had much choice," I spat back. "And I know you're going to walk out again as soon as you think you can make it on your own again!"

I couldn't see Mello's face, but I knew I'd hit the right nerve with that. "Yes. Because this isn't your fucking war, Matt. I'm not dragging you into the line of fire. I'm trying to _protect_ you."

"How the fuck are you being _protective_ right now?" I yelled, finally getting my arms underneath me and shoved myself off the floor, which sent Mello rolling off me. I backed out of range before he could pick himself back up off the floor.

He didn't pick himself up off the floor, though. He just sat up and looked at me. His eyes didn't look as cold as I'd expected them to. "I'm keeping you out of a war that you could get killed in."

"And when _you_ get killed? What then?"

"You'll be safe."

I felt like I was starting to run out of steam, and judging by his tone of voice, Mello was too. "What's the point of me being safe if you're dead? What's left to live for?" I couldn't believe I'd said that. It had been out of my mouth before I'd had time to stop it. Stupid.

But Mello didn't call me on it. "And what am I going to do if _you_ die?"

I blinked behind my goggles. "Then you won't have to worry about me anymore."

Mello fixed me with a look of…disbelief? No, horror. Then, after a moment, he looked away. "So. You really think I see you like that. You really think that I'd be okay if you died."

"Well, you'd be more okay than I would be. Than I would be if you died, I mean."

"No!" Even his exclamation wasn't enough warning for me to avoid being tackled once again. Mello locked eyes with me through orange lenses, holding the front of my shirt in a death grip so I couldn't push him off again. "I would _not_ be fucking okay if you died! You have no fucking idea!"

That confused me even more than I already was. "So what did I get wrong, then?"

"Nothing." He put his head on my chest. "There is nothing wrong with you."

It occurred to me then that I had no idea what was going on anymore. All I knew is that Mello sounded like he was almost ready to burst into tears, which was alarming in and of itself. I wrapped my arms around him, hoping that would calm him down. It was pretty clear to me by then that I'd read Mello entirely wrong.

"I don't want you to die," he said quietly, voice muffled.

"I know."

Mello relaxed his death grip on my shirt and went limp, face still buried in my chest. "…Don't die," he said after a minute, sounding very small.

"I'll try." I started rubbing soothing circles on his back, not sure why, but hell, at least it was something. "Don't you die either."

"…I'll try." His tone told me that he didn't truly expect to survive this. I hugged him tighter, not wanting to lose him.

It was a few minutes later that Mello finally said, "If I let you help, will you let me keep you safe?"

"Yes." In truth, I'd forgotten the original argument that had started all this. I supposed I'd won. But it didn't feel like a victory. It felt like we'd both recognized our death sentences.

"Thank you…"

Mello sounded tired. For a minute I considered asking him to let me up so we could go somewhere more comfortable, but I knew if I did that, I'd lose this moment. So I just laid there and let him fall asleep, still holding him tightly.


	16. Twelve

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, I never have, and move than likely I never will.

A/N: First off, sorry for taking so long. I kept procrastinating, then when I finally told myself I had to write, I got writer's block. Mello still doesn't particularly like me. I'm trying to cut a deal in which I give him chocolate every time he cooperates. He usually refuses and just stands there and dislikes me. I think it's improving, though. Slowly. And I hit 100 reviews! It's exciting. Thank you! *hugs for everybody* And thanks of course to my lovely beta/RP partner DessArtem, even though she decided to just turn me loose for this chapter and not give me any Mello-advice. But it worked out. And now I'm done with this obscenely long AN.

**Chapter 16: Twelve**

Eventually, in spite of the fact that I was sandwiched between the dead weight of Mello and the rather unyielding floor, I managed to doze off. When I woke up later, Mello had vanished, and I felt as though I had been hit by a small bus. Or a large car. Or perhaps an out-of-control cyclist. Having never actually been hit by any of those, I couldn't really make an accurate comparison. I decided to just tell myself I'd been hit by a Mello and leave it at that.

After that assessment, I sat up, which made my head start throbbing like nothing else. "Ow…" I mumbled. I wasn't sure which was worse – the headache or the slightly duller but unrelenting pain in my jaw, which, based on how it felt, was probably rather bruised on the right side. Damn, Mello could throw a punch. I was glad I'd picked that fight while he was both injured and high. Not that I was any less injured for it…

I was about to stand up when I heard footsteps coming from the kitchen. At the same instant, I saw something black vanish around the side of the doorway to the bedroom. So, it wasn't gone. Damn.

"You're awake," Mello commented, crouching down next to me. By the looks of it, he'd changed the bandages over his burn. It looked like he'd had a bit of trouble with the ones on his arm, but he seemed to have done alright otherwise. "You sleep like a rock."

"'m not surprised," I muttered, rubbing the back of my head. "But I don't think rocks bruise."

Mello, to his credit, looked apologetic. "Let me see." Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and ran his fingers carefully along my jaw, which hurt like a _bitch_. I gritted my teeth, and Mello quickly took his hand away. "It doesn't feel broken."

"If it's not broken, what color is it?" I asked. If it was going to be sore anyway, it might as well be a spectacular color.

"Um, bruise color. Purple, brown and vaguely yellow."

Well, I guess I hadn't really expected a rainbow. I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting Mello to still look sorry, that was for sure. "Eh, I'll be fine." I rubbed the back of my head again in a failed attempt to relieve my headache.

Mello stood up. "You might want to get up before the pancakes get cold," he advised, heading into the kitchen.

"You made pancakes?" I asked, pushing myself to my feet and following him. "When did you learn to cook?"

"It's not particularly complicated. You just read the recipe and do what it says. If you didn't have the attention span of a hyperactive gerbil, you could probably make something other than canned soup." He put two plates of pancakes on the table. "Do you have syrup?"

"Um…" I looked around the kitchen. "I think it's in that cupboard by the sink. I'll check. You might've tossed it while you were cleaning." I crossed the kitchen and wrenched the cupboard open. I was greeted by a small avalanche of mostly-empty bottles of…stuff. Dish soap and olive oil and 409, and a few other things I couldn't quite identify.

I was beginning to think Mello might've been right about me being a slob. I guessed that he was thinking that too, since I could've sworn I heard him mutter something that sounded like, "You're hopeless."

"Where's the ibuprofen."

I withdrew my head from the cabinet. "I don't think I have any. What do you need it for?"

"I need it for you. You keep wincing every time you move."

I unearthed the half-full bottle of syrup I'd spotted at the very back of the cupboard and stood up. "Don't worry about it. I'm just stiff from falling asleep on the floor." I tossed him the syrup – which he thankfully caught – and grabbed some forks.

Mello sat down at the table and started dumping syrup on his pancakes. "Go lie down after you eat." I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. "Just lie down on the bed and take a nap. Humor me."

I decided it was best to eat my pancakes and not argue with him. Then I realized something. Two somethings, but I figured I'd deal with them one at a time. "Why are we eating pancakes at five o'clock in the afternoon?"

"Because we never ate breakfast."

"Where did you get the chocolate chips for them?"

"You got them the last time you went to the store." He frowned. "I didn't give you a concussion, did I?"

"Mello, all you gave me was a grocery list a mile long. It's not surprising I can't remember anything on it. I'm fine."

Mello didn't look convinced. We ate the rest of our breakfast – supper – whatever meal it was supposed to be – in silence. Mello finished first, then watched me like a hawk and snatched my plate the second I was done. "Now go lay down." I was halfway out of the kitchen when he added, "And don't even think about playing any games."

That thought had definitely crossed my mind, but the look on Mello's face led me to believe acting on that thought wouldn't be my best idea in the world. "I'm banishing the idea from my mind."

Mello snorted. Apparently he didn't find that believable. I didn't really find it believable either, to be completely honest. But that was because I knew what I was thinking. He, on the other hand – well, actually, he probably knew what I was thinking too. So, despite the fact that my PSP was conveniently on the nightstand, I flopped down onto the bed without so much as touching it. Then I had to deal with getting comfortable. Surprisingly enough, it was difficult to find a comfortable way to lie after you'd been punched in the face, shoved into a wall, and tackled twice. It wasn't that bad, but my bed wasn't that comfortable to start with, so I couldn't find any way to lie that was any more comfortable than the one I'd been in when I woke up on the floor.

I was just sinking into the dull boredom that came with gamelessness when I heard Mello walk in. I opened my eyes. "Checking to make sure I'm not playing games?"

"Yes." Mello sat down on the other side of the bed and handed me an ice pack. "Put this on your jaw. It might help."

I turned over onto my side so I could balance the ice pack – which seemed to be made of a bag of frozen peas and a towel – on my face without using my hands. "Thanks."

Mello was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said, catching the ice pack, which had started to slide when I spoke.

Mello frowned. "No, it's not. I shouldn't have beaten you up."

I sighed and sat up, setting the ice pack down on the bed. "Mello, it's okay. I've known you since I was seven, and this is the first time you've actually injured me, as far as I can remember, and this time I provoked you, so I'll take the blame for it."

"I've hurt you before. Do you…? Yeah, you do still have that scar."

"What scar?"

"The one on your cheek from when I threw my history book at you."

It took me a minute to remember what he was talking about. "Oh. I remember I was pissing you off then, too. And you weren't exactly aiming for me anyway, so that was an accident. That doesn't count."

"Still."

"Mello, I'm over it. You don't need to keep blaming yourself. It's not like you did any lasting damage. You should take a nap too – maybe you'll feel less guilty when you wake up and find out I'm back to doing stupid crap."

He stood up. "I'm not tired." He went over to the doorway, turned off the lights, and then shut the door and came back over to sit on the bed. "But I'll lie down anyway."

I rolled my eyes and pulled off my goggles, then laid back down and put the ice pack back on my jaw. Within five minutes, I heard Mello's breathing even out. Not tired my ass. But I figured it was probably a better use of my time to sleep than to ridicule Mello's pride in my head. Not to mention it was probably better for my health, since he did seem to have a way of knowing what I was thinking.


	17. Stars

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I never have, I never will.

A/N: Yeah, this one was quite a bit quicker to write than the last few. The chapter title has no bearing on what's in the chapter, it's just the song on the Les Miserables soundtrack that I was listening to while I wrote most of this. I'm already working on the next chapter, but I can't promise I'll write it very fast... Anyways, enjoy, and as always, thanks to DessArtem for being an awesome semi-cowriter/beta.

**Chapter 17: Stars**

I woke up a few hours later feeling significantly warmer than I had when I went to sleep. I attributed most of that to the fact that my ice pack had completely thawed. I grabbed it and tossed it onto the floor to pick up later, then realized that the thawed ice pack wasn't really why I was warm. I was warm because there were two warm somethings on the bed, one on either side of me. It seemed that Mello had somehow gotten closer and was now almost pressed against my chest, and something else – I had no idea what – was putting off a lot of heat right against the small of my back. Slightly concerned, I pushed myself up on my elbow and twisted myself around to see what it was. When I figured it out, I turned to Mello, who was sound asleep. "Mello!"

"What?" he muttered, not opening his eyes. Apparently he wasn't quite as asleep as he'd appeared.

"The Cat from Hell's on the bed."

He opened his eyes and looked at me. At least I think he was looking at me – I wasn't sure he could see me as well as I could see him. "What do you want _me_ to do about it?"

"Well, you let the thing in, you can throw it back out."

He closed his eyes again. "I'm not getting up to throw the cat out right now. Do it yourself."

"Fine. I'll just move." I scooted forwards so I was farther away from the cat. And much farther into Mello's personal bubble than he'd been into mine.

Luckily, he didn't seem to care. "Shut up so I can sleep," he grumbled.

Behind me, I felt the bed move, and there was once again a warm, furry-feeling weight pressed against the small of my back. "For crying out loud," I muttered, inching forward once more to try to escape the thing.

"Pick a spot and settle," Mello snapped. "I can't sleep with you moving around every five seconds."

None of this was getting me anywhere – other than into Mello's personal space, that was. He seemed too tired to really care, luckily for me. "I can't move now anyway," I told him, trying to get comfortable without squashing either Mello or the cat, both of which would retaliate if I did such a thing.

"Good. Now shut it."

I did shut it, but not without a parting shot of, "Stupid goddamn animal." Then I closed my eyes and attempted to ignore the cat and sleep. But I really didn't want to go to sleep with the little monster right behind me, so it took me ages to finally doze off.

When I woke up again, there was light seeping in through the half-open bedroom door, and both Mello and the cat were nowhere to be found. I sat up, grabbed my goggles and pulled them on, then hopped off the bed and stretched. I was a bit sore and stiff, but nothing that a cigarette and a cup of coffee wouldn't fix.

I meandered into the living room about ten minutes later, half-full coffee cup still in my hand. Mello was bent over a laptop on the coffee table. "Morning," I said, meandering over to the couch and leaning over the back.

Mello quickly closed the tab he'd been reading. "Morning." I couldn't tell what had been open before I walked up, but the screen was now displaying an article comparing Kira's "morals" to different types of ethics.

"If you're trying to justify Kira, Mello, I may seriously begin to worry about your mental health."

"You don't already?"

"Well, I do, but at least you're a consistent lunatic."

He snorted. "I'm not justifying it; someone else is. They've put Kira in the books right alongside Aristotle."

"Bet they can't wait until he's caught – then they'll have a real name to cite. What are they calling the theory? God Complex-ism?"

"Totalitarianism, actually."

"…Can you really say anything good enough about that to turn it into an ethical theory?"

"Yes, apparently. It's 'the adherence to an absolute moral code with the goal of improving overall conditions.'"

I leaned over his shoulder to reread the definition on the screen. "Isn't that a contraction in and of itself, to murder murderers because your ethical beliefs say murder is bad for overall conditions?"

"Yes. It is."

"There's humanity for you." I sighed and went around the couch to sit next to him. "Have you learned anything from that essay? Other than people are cowards, that is?"

He closed the laptop. "No."

I considered asking him what he'd been looking at before I came over, but decided not to. It really wasn't my business, and besides, I had a feeling that if I asked, he wouldn't answer anyway. Instead I grabbed my DS off the coffee table and turned it on.

I'd been playing for about ten minutes when I realized Mello was watching me intently. I paused the game. "Wanna try?" I asked, holding it out to him.

"No. I'm not letting that thing rot _my_ brain."

"Says the man I caught playing Pokemon a few days ago," I said, going back to God of War.

"I told you, I was deleting your game!"

"Right."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mello grab a bar of chocolate off the coffee table. A moment later there was a vicious snapping sound, which I took as the end of the discussion.

After a while, Mello opened the laptop again and presumably recommenced whatever he'd been doing before. Every so often I would glance over when the action in my game slowed down. Once or twice I saw him twisting the beads on his rosary. I wasn't sure if it was a prayer or just a habit. Maybe it was both.

* * *

It was getting rather late – or early, depending on how you looked at it – when I finally packed in my games and looked at Mello, who'd abandoned the computer and was watching television without paying much attention to it. "Bedtime," I announced.

Mello jumped and stared at me, then seemed to come back to earth. "Oh." He stood up and stretched, cat-like, which…

I decided I wasn't even going to go there. For many reasons.

"Goodnight," Mello said, heading for the bedroom before I could answer and shutting the door behind him.

"…Goodnight," I told the wood. The wood said nothing, unsurprisingly.

I grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and shook it out. I wasn't sure what was up with Mello. He'd been off the entire day. Jumpy. I wanted to know what he was thinking about, since something told me it wasn't Kira's supposed ethics, but I wasn't about to ask him. He seemed to be in a mood where it wouldn't take too much to make him angry.

After five minutes of stillness, I was sorely, sorely tempted to grab my PSP and play until I fell asleep, but I was worried that the light might wake Mello up if he saw it through the slightly-open door. Although, judging by the creaking bedsprings I could hear every few moments, Mello wasn't sleeping any more than I was.

"Mello?"

The creaking abruptly ceased.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he snapped back.

"Okay." After a few more minutes, I grabbed my PSP off the coffee table and turned it on.. I'd fall asleep eventually.


	18. Truth

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, and if I did, these two would live in the canon, like they deserve to.

A/N: Okay, I'm really, really sorry I took so long with this. I didn't mean to, but first I was lazy, then I had writer's block, then I was away at camp. I finally finished it last night. I'm going to try to write chapter 19 a bit faster *knocks on wood* I can't make any promises, but there's actually a defined arc in my mind for this, so it'll hopefully be a bit quicker, but again...no promises.

**Chapter 18: Truth**

To my surprise, Mello still hadn't surfaced by noon the next day. The bedroom door was still closed, and I didn't want to open it if he was sleeping, since he could use all the rest he could get. I also had no idea when he'd gotten to sleep the night before. He'd still been making a racket with the bedsprings when I'd finally fallen asleep myself.

By the time three o'clock rolled around, though, Mello was still conspicuously absent. I couldn't imagine him sleeping this late, not if he had the physical capacity to get out of bed. He hated sleeping in the day. Either he was in a bad mood and wanted to be left alone, or something far more dire had happened. With that cheery thought in mind, I went and knocked on the door. "Mello?"

I heard the bed creak. "What?" Mello snapped through the door. Well, at least he wasn't dead or seriously incapacitated…I didn't think, anyway.

"Are you okay?" I called through the door, just to check. He could be just minorly incapacitated and not want me to know for some reason, after all.

"Yes! Go away!"

Or he could just be in a bad mood that I wasn't making any better. Sometimes I thought that pissing him off was part of my job in life. "You know that it's three in the afternoon, right?"

"Yes! I do!"

"No need to bite my head off," I called back through the door. "Have you eaten anything today?" He couldn't have, nut unless he could walk through walls and turn invisible. I wasn't even sure if there was any chocolate in the bedroom. I didn't think there was.

"Matt, leave me the hell alone!" Mello yelled through the door.

I took a step back. "Okay, okay. I'm leaving now." There was no response, so I meandered off into the kitchen. I dug through the freezer, grabbed a box of frozen waffles, and popped a few in Philbrook. "Come on, boy," I urged. "These are for Mello, not me. I know you like Mello."

Philbrook, ever a stubborn, insolent toaster, dinged and spat the waffles back out, completely untoasted. I smacked him. "Work, dammit!"

He buzzed at me.

"If you don't work for me, I'll go tell Mello, and he'll come in here and shoot you," I threatened.

Philbrook emitted a small, high-pitched ding that sounded suspiciously like a surrender to me.

I popped the waffles in again, then went to grab a plate and fork. When I turned back, the waffles had popped up, toasted to perfection. "Thank you," I said, snatching them, dousing them in syrup, and then heading back to the bedroom door.

There was no immediate outcry when I pushed the door open, so I felt it was safe to go in. Mello was sitting on the edge of the bed, glaring at me with more hostility than usual. "I brought waffles," I informed him, ignoring the glare.

"I'm not hungry."

I shrugged. "Well, I brought waffles anyway." I handed him the plate and sat down. He pushed the waffles around in the syrup, not showing any indication that he wanted to eat them. "…Mello, what's wrong?" I finally asked.

"Nothing," he said, not looking at me.

I sighed. "Mello, I can't do anything if you won't tell me what's wrong."

"I don't need help!" he snapped.

"So something is wrong, then?"

"No! There is _nothing_ wrong!" I was surprised the waffles didn't burst into flames, what with the force of the glare they were receiving. "I'm going to watch television," he said abruptly, setting his plate on the floor.

"Mello, why don't you just tell me what's the matter?" I knew that getting Mello to admit to weakness was like getting blood from a stone, but I was determined to at least try.

He turned and shot me a glare of pure poison. "Maybe I'm sick of being around you and want you to leave me the hell alone!"

I stared at him. That hurt. It hurt a lot. I didn't even bother trying to hide it, although I doubted I could've even if I wanted to.

For a moment I thought I saw regret in his eyes. Then he stood up and marched out the door.

Or, at least, he attempted to. Whether he was distracted by whatever was going on in his head or he'd just plain forgotten it was there, I wasn't sure, but he realized too late that there wasn't nearly enough traction to march anywhere when there was a plate of syrup-slathered waffles between his foot and the wood floor. But there was plenty of slipperiness to fall in a rather undignified sprawl on the floor.

I was crouched next to him almost before he hit the ground completely, although I was too late to catch him. He didn't move to get up, and the agonized look on his face told me that he must've hurt his burn on the landing. I put my hand on his good shoulder. "Can you sit up?" I didn't bother to ask whether he was okay or not, since the answer was obvious.

He opened his eyes, glared at me, and pushed my hand away. "I'm fine!" he grunted, struggling into a sitting position and grimacing.

"Are you sure? You didn't hit your head or anything, did you?"

He glared daggers at me. "Just leave me the fuck alone!" he snarled, reminding me of a wounded animal. "I don't need you!"

I wasn't sure if that was what he intended to say or how he intended to say it, but I didn't stick around to ask. I just walked out. Out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, down the steps and onto the sidewalk.

After five years of him not needing me, hearing him say it to my face shouldn't have hurt so much.

But for some reason it did.


	19. Connections

Disclaimer: I don't own the Death Note characters. Although if I did, you can bet there'd be a heck of a lot more solid history behind them.

A/N: Okay, I'm really, really sorry. I said this would be a quick update. I clearly failed at that... I blame Matt. He decided he didn't like what I was doing and demanded I do something different, but he refused to tell me what I was doing wrong. So after much trial and error I finally figured out what I'd done to offend him, and then I could go on my way. So again, sorry for the delay, and I hope the content of the chapter makes up for it :)

**Chapter 19: Connections**

When I got back a few hours later, Mello was barricaded in the bedroom again. I passed the closed door on my way to the couch and tried to convince myself that it didn't matter. Four hours later, I was still trying to convince myself of that fact and having very little luck. "Oh, fuck it," I muttered as I watched Lara Croft die on the television screen for the sixth time in a row. I chucked the controller onto the coffee table, grabbed the remote, flipped through the channels, then leaned on the arm of the couch and watched mindless late-night cartoons until my eyes ached behind my goggles.

I wasn't sure what woke me up. A truck going by outside, maybe, or the radiator turning off. After a few seconds I realized that the blanket from the back of the couch was draped over me, and the television was tuned to CNN rather than FOX. Feeling groggy and vaguely disoriented, I glanced over at the clock. It read 2:47 AM, but the clock wasn't really what I was paying attention to.

Mello was curled up at the other end of the couch. His knees were pulled up to his chest, with his arms wrapped around them. His head was resting on one arm, and I could see that his eyes were closed. Even in sleep, he looked troubled.

If L had ever slept, I was certain that was how he would've looked: like he had troubles he could never share.

I yawned and pushed the blanket off myself so I could stand up and stretch. As I did, I noticed that Mello was holding something: his rosary. He must've fallen asleep staring at it.

For a minute I just watched him sleep. In spite of looking troubled, he was still sleeping like the dead. He must've been exhausted. I grabbed the blanket off the couch and draped it over him, then carefully tucked it around his shoulders. He didn't even stir.

"What's happening in your head?" I asked him quietly, leaning down and pushing an unruly lock of hair off his face. For a moment I thought he might wake up, but he didn't. He just slept on, fingers tightening very slightly around his rosary.

There had to be something that caused this, some reason behind this. I knew that Mello wasn't completely sane – I wasn't sure anyone who came from Wammy's House could be any less than slightly insane, myself included – but even so, he wasn't the type to run off the rails like this for no reason at all. And here I stood, unable to make sense of any of it, beyond knowing that the problem was most likely linked to his religion.

For a minute I considered the possibility that he'd done something in the Mafia that had been unforgivable. He'd been part of the Mafia for who knew how long, and had probably done things I never even wanted to contemplate. But it seemed to me that if he'd been mentally and emotionally cracking under the pressure of what he'd done, then he would've done it before now. It was possible, but not probable. …Also, there was nothing I could do for him if that was the case, and I wanted to think I could help him, at least until I was forced to admit that I couldn't.

"But this… It's Hell, we're in Hell…"

When he'd first woken up after the explosion, he had thought he was in Hell. At the time, I hadn't thought anything of it, beyond the fact that he must have felt like he was on fire, but now that I looked back, some of the things he'd said started drifting back.

"Oh, God, no… Please, God, he doesn't belong here, take him back, he doesn't deserve this! Please, God… I was trying to do the right thing…"

Now that I thought about what he'd said, little things about it started to bother me. I didn't want to attach too much significance to pain-induced ramblings, but at the same time, I needed to find _something_ that might offer an explanation, and they were really all I had to work with. He'd been too careful with what he said once he'd gotten control of himself again.

The thing that stuck out the most wasn't that he thought he was in Hell – at the time that was probably a reasonable conclusion, given how he felt – but the fact that he seemed more concerned about me being there than he was about himself. As if he was somehow responsible for me. That could potentially mean that I was part of the problem now, although I couldn't see how.

It could be that he felt guilty about agreeing to let me help him, but that didn't make sense either. I'd fought for my right to help him, and if he had a problem with it, he'd just say it. He wouldn't do this to himself. And anyway, that would have nothing to do with religion.

I really couldn't see any way I could be connected with his Catholicism, actually. Religion and I very rarely saw things eye to eye, for a variety of reasons, but Mello was used to that, so that couldn't be the problem. And if he wanted me to convert, he'd tell me so and then pray for my soul, he wouldn't get angry at me.

…No, not angry. He acted angry, but it was more retaliation, like a hurt animal. Up until a few days ago, he'd actually been friendly, so something must have happened to set this off. But nothing had happened, not that I could remember. Which meant that something had happened in his head.

I sighed and sat down next to him on the couch. He shifted a little in his sleep, but didn't wake up. A change of position didn't give me any new information, sadly. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, deciding to just space out and see if anything useful drifted into my mind.

Sleep had been about to take over my brain when I felt something move on the end of the couch not occupied by Mello. Very slowly, I opened my eyes and looked down.

It was the cat. It was that stupid, Goddamn cat that was still, somehow, in my apartment. It looked quite at home on the sofa, standing there in the glow of the television with its tail twitching, watching me with big, wide green eyes. Maybe it thought it could charm me. I'm not sure. But I wasn't a cat person, not by a long shot. I didn't like animals, period.

The beast took a few dainty steps forward across the couch cushion and put its front paws onto my leg. I held my breath, waiting for my opportunity to snag it by the scruff of the neck.

Then it started making a sound like an old transmission, and it took me a minute to realize that it was _purring_.

Dammit, today just wasn't my day, was it?

I took a deep breath, sighed, and scratched the thing's ears, which made it purr all the louder. Then it proceeded to climb the rest of the way onto my lap, dig its claws into my leg a few times, then lay down. I glared at it, and it blinked up at me with an expression that practically begged, "Pet me!"

"Well, at least somebody around here isn't having a crisis," I muttered, giving in and petting the little terror, which purred contentedly and kept making big-paws on my leg. "You know, this doesn't mean I'm letting you stay," I informed it. Not that it cared. It just got comfy on my lap, sprawling and making itself right at home. Well, at least it wasn't as awkward as the time _Mello_ had sprawled on my lap.

…Wait…

I ran back through the last week or so in my head. From him thinking we were in Hell, to eating pizza, to hunting for the cat, to Mello's nightmare, to the fight…

There _was_ a connection. From me, to religion, to Mello pushing me away, tracing back through the last week and all the way to a sewer under a Winchester street five years before.

I didn't know exactly what to think about it. Or rather, I had thought about it, quite a bit, but never from quite this angle, and I was at a complete loss as to what to do about it.

But at least I knew what _it_ was.

* * *

A/N: The bit about the sewer is an allusion to a story that's not actually written yet, but is set just before the boys leave Wammy's. I'm referencing a part where B lures Matt and Mello down into the sewer and nearly rips their friendship apart by revealing one of Matt's few secrets.


	20. Believe

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, or Mello, or Matt. I do, however, own several cute cats, one of whom reminds me very much of Matt's cat.

A/N: Sorry, this one is both late AND short, but Dess agreed that it ended in the perfect place. I hope the end makes up for both shortness and lateness.

**Chapter 20: Believe**

"_I knew you'd be the one to come. And your faithful dog – I'm not surprised. I see you have a knife; are you planning to fight me?"_

"_I'll kill you if I have to! Let him go!"_

"_You really don't understand, do you? You've been so blinded that you can't even see the betrayals surrounding you."_

"_The only one who's betrayed anyone is you!"_

"_You misunderstand – we're on the same side, you and me. The only difference between us is that I'm the rat that's escaped the maze, while you're still trapped inside."_

"_We have nothing in common! You're lying!"_

"_You just haven't seen the nest of lies you've been raised in. You can't see how L is a killer, and how Wammy's House is inexorably destroying you."_

"_That's completely – "_

"_And on top of all that, you can't even see the betrayal that's going on behind you right now."_

"…_What are you talking about? Matt wouldn't betray me!"_

"_Oh? Don't you ever wonder what's going on inside his mind?"_

"_I know he doesn't want to be better than me, and even if he did, he's not!"_

"_What about the other things he thinks? When you see him watching you when he doesn't think you're looking, when feel him staring at you in the dark when he should be sleeping, do you know what he's thinking then?"_

"…"

"_It never even crossed your mind that he wanted to drag you down to Hell with him, did it?"_

I shot awake, eyes wide. If there was any person I preferred to avoid in my sleep, it was B. When I was at Wammy's, he always seemed to like me, which was quite alarming in and of itself. I would've much preferred that he treated me with curious indifference like he did everyone else, but for some reason he found me too interesting not to show an interest in.

For a long time I had thought that it was B's demonic grin that had terrified me down in the sewers. Then I realized that the scariest thing of all had been the look in Mello's eyes when he saw the truth in those words.

On the other end of the couch, Mello stirred. I looked down at the cat on my lap so that it wouldn't look like I'd been staring at him. (I had been, but I hardly wanted him to know that.) "Morning," I said, scratching the cat's ears and being rewarded with an even louder purr.

Mello grunted a good morning in return and uncurled so he was sitting more like a normal person and less like…well, less like L. At least he was speaking to me.

"So the cat's still in here," he noted after a long moment of silence.

I nodded. "Yup." There was another moment of silence. "It's got a big triangular white spot on its chest," I noted.

"I see that."

"…Maybe I should name it Zelda," I mused.

"Don't stick it with a name like that, that's just stupid."

I shrugged. "I don't even know if it's a girl." I lifted its tail and checked. "Never mind, its name isn't Zelda."

"That's a relief."

I thought for a moment. "I'll call it Ganon," I decided. It was an evil little shit of a cat; the name suited it perfectly.

Mello was silent for a minute, obviously trying to link that name to one of my games, but apparently not making the connection to the very game I'd just mentioned. "Fine."

Silence fell around us again. Damn, and we'd almost been back to normal, too. Well, what passed as normal for us, at least. I'm not sure anyone else would have considered our friendship precisely normal.

For a long time, neither of us said anything, and the only thing breaking the silence was Ganon's rusty purr as I petted him.

"…Do you believe in God?"

I'd been involved in petting Ganon and not thinking; the question caught me off guard. "What?"

"Do you believe in God?" Mello repeated.

I looked over at him. He wasn't even touching the rosary hanging around his neck, and there was an odd expression on his face; something that was part calculated, part determined, and part something else entirely. "…No, I don't."

It wasn't often that I was forced to say this, but I couldn't read Mello right then. The look on his face was something I had never seen before, and I wasn't sure whether it was good or bad or just neutral. "…Good."

If the initial question had caught me off guard, that floored me. I twisted a bit to stare at him, Ganon abandoning my lap in favor of the arm of the couch, which wasn't moving. "Good?" I echoed, trying to wrap my mind around why my not believing in God could possibly be a good thing in Mello's eyes, but the reason eluded me.

"If you don't believe in God," he said, sounding as though he'd thought about the words a long time, "then you're going to Hell no matter what I do."

"What do you – " I didn't get to finish my question, though, because Mello slid across the couch so he was right beside me.

And he kissed me.


	21. Damnation

Disclaimer: Only thing I own in this chapter is Ganon. Who is cute. But not as cute as Russle, who is my kitty baby 3

A/N: First off - I'm REALLY, REALLY SORRY this took so long. I got really, really distracted by Kyo Kara Maoh - blame Dess for introducing me to it :P - and I lost all drive, pretty much. Ironically enough, it was Avatar: The Last Airbender - which Dess also got me into so I'd go see the movie with her (now I'm hooked) - that got me back into writing Death Note. Thank Sokka for reviving my sense of sarcasm XP Anyways, this chapter is made of fluff, so sorry for that too. I'm trying to get back into this.

**Chapter 21: Damnation**

Mello kissed me. That was about as far as my thoughts went, because my brain had short-circuited somewhere. He was _kissing_ me. I was too astonished to even react.

I had certainly entertained some thoughts about him pretty much since I'd hit puberty, with varying degrees of guilt, and that certainly hadn't stopped when he'd left the House, but after the…incident with B, I'd done my best to put it out of my mind. Over the years they'd all come back, then I'd pushed them out of the way again when I finally found him. I hadn't wanted to scare him off by saying something stupid.

Apparently I'd misjudged something somewhere along the line.

After a few seconds Mello pulled away, giving me a look that almost dared me to say something. And who was I to disappoint? "Uh, Mello, what - ?"

Okay, not the most coherent statement I'd ever made in my life, but it was something.

Mello just waited for me to finish my question. "Um, what brought that on?"

"I told you. You're going to Hell no matter what I do, and if we're both going to Hell, then it doesn't matter anymore."

…That implied that he'd been sitting on this for a while. Perhaps a long while. How did I miss _that_? Although now that I thought about it, I definitely hadn't missed all of it. "…Is this what your religious crisis was about, when you refused to come out of your room?"

He didn't answer. Or at least, not with a simple answer. For all I knew he wasn't aware he was answering. "I thought I'd failed. No matter how I looked at it, I'd failed. But…I've done a lot more than I can repent for now, and I've already decided that catching Kira and beating Near is worth more to me than my immortal soul, and…if I'm going to Hell, then I might as well have someone to go there with."

I wasn't sure quite how that made me feel. On the one hand, apparently Mello wanted to spend eternity with me. On the other hand, if it weren't for his suicidal drive to beat Near into a bloody pulp, he'd be just as happy to spend his eternity without me. It gave me the strange feeling I was a rather minor character in the grand scheme of things. It stung a bit. I felt as though I should blame someone, but I didn't believe in God, and I had no idea who else might be running my life from afar. It wasn't as if someone could…I don't know, write down my entire life in a nice little book and then force me to live it, or something stupid like that.

"So, uh, how long have you been sitting on all that?" I asked after I'd sort of sorted out my feelings.

Mello didn't answer right away. He seemed to be thinking about it. "…A while."

"…A long while, or a short while?" I didn't know how to just let it go, did I?

"I don't know, okay?" he snapped.

I held up my hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it. It just kinda…well, took me completely by surprise and I wanted to know how unobservant I was, that's all."

He gave me one of his special you-are-such-an-idiot stares. "So _nothing_ has tipped you off? At all? Not me sitting on your lap eating pizza, or me forcing you to sleep and cuddling, or even me telling you what a gaping hole I'd have in my life if you _died_?" he demanded.

Oh yeah. That. "I guess…I didn't think of it that way." He was still staring at me. "I was too busy trying not to get hung up on how hot you are to notice?" I offered.

For a moment Mello's face was disturbingly blank. Then he burst out laughing. Which of course made me smile.

I didn't get to hear him laugh nearly often enough.

"Prrrow?" Ganon jumped up onto Mello's lap - I had to bite down my protest of "That's _my_ spot now! Sorta..." - and looked up at him, probably wondering what the hell that noise was.

Then I remembered how we'd met Ganon in the first place and gotten stuck in the closet and burst out laughing myself.

"What's so funny?" Mello demanded, petting the cat.

I managed to stop laughing. "Remember when we got stuck in the closet?"

He nodded.

"And I started giggling for absolutely no reason?"

He nodded again, a little impatiently.

"Well, I was appreciating the irony of me being stuck in a closet. And knowing that it was just as ironic for you makes it even funnier."

"I wasn't stuck in the closet," he said, the humor going out of his eyes.

"Right." I supposed I shouldn't joke about a religious crisis. "So…what now?"

"You expect me to know?" he snapped.

I shrugged. "Well, I don't know how far your plan for this goes."

Mello said nothing, but from the look on his face, I guessed that he'd been too nervous to plan beyond kissing me.

I could work with that.

"Well, I have a plan," I announced. Before he could ask me what it was, I'd tackled him, pinning him against the couch and nearly getting a belly full of kitty claws before Ganon escaped to the floor. "I've had this plan since I was about fourteen, so I've had a lot of time to polish it up," I said, then leaned down to kiss him. And just like I had planned, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me back.

Then he rolled over and landed on top of me on the floor, nearly giving me a concussion and definitely giving me bruises. "I think I have a plan now," he said sweetly. Because, you know, letting me execute _my_ plan would be entirely un-Mello.

But then again, I had what I really wanted, so I wasn't about to complain. Not even about the bruise forming on my tailbone.


End file.
